I am participating in National Blog Posting Month, a.k.a. Nablopomo, by posting an entry on this site every day of this month, November 2011. I’ve signed up other blogs of mine for Nablopomo challenges in the past however I have not yet posted every single day of a month, but this month I will do it. Why? Well, I have always been a writer, and have self-identified as a writer at least since I was in Junior High School, many, many, many moons ago.
And, well, the best answer to “Why?” is, ” Writers write.” And the more I write about anything, the more I write about everything. It primes the pump so to speak. Now that I have several of my blogs feeding into this one, it will be far easier to stockpile posts a few days ahead and schedule posts, which is the trick to consistent , smooth as clockwork publishing as far as I can tell. I learned this by reading The Burrow. If on a certain day I am not just overflowing with creativity about business and the marketing of meaning, I can now post something on one of the other topical blogs I maintain that is appropriate for cross-posting posting here. While I blog tech and semiotic marketing here, the posts that feed here from my boomer blog, my political blog, my local economy blog, and my personal blog are just categories within my portfolio showcasing my topical research and written content. Much clicked into place for me when I heard Morgan reference her blog as a portfolio of her work at Pathfinder Day pre-Blogher 11 Conference. That is what I am attempting to do with this iteration of this blog.
I write because I love to write. I write because I have to write. I love the feel of a pen, preferably one with an archival quality ink and ultra fine point, or pencil, mechanical with .7 lead on paper, or the magical tap, tap, tap of my finger tips flowing over a keyboard that sends these analog neural impulses into digital signals, that all appear on a page, electronic, or otherwise.
Writing helps me focus and quiet this unquiet mind of mine. In rather dramatic fashion a poem I once wrote contained the line, “the page will listen when my throat runs dry of scream.” As a woman who has lived with depression at least since the age of 12, the page has been an ever-patient, always there companion who allows me to voice my problems and sadness. The page listens, without judgment, as I lament ignorance and mis-steps that sent me onto some very dark and frightening paths. The page listens when I am giddy with joy. The page is always there.
Writing also helps me celebrate the sharing of information. I have helped others find just the bit of information they needed by working at reference desks and information stations in libraries. I have helped preserve anthropological and archaeological information by working in a museum with collections of the prehistory of the Southwestern United States. I take up causes and help to package and share information about subjects that I love and for which I have a passion in ways that I strive to have be novel and needed by writing about later born baby boomers and the distinct cohorts within the larger generation with an imposed and unflattering name, about creating sustainable peace and community, about under reported and misdiagnosed forms of child abuse, and about forested swampy lands that originally made up the lower Great Lakes Basin, and about the arid lands that once plentifully flowed with life giving waters now dammed and diverted by greedy systems that see the earth’s biosphere as distinct commodities that can be controlled for profit.
I write because writing is one of the processes that creates and defines me; I write because writing is me; but the very best thing about writing is finding out that some thought to which I have given voice has touched the inner essence of another human being.
If you write, why do you write?