I Totally Talk Too Much

The reason I've failed to keep a journal since I was in about fourth grade, is that I talk too much.

And here's the thing: it translates into writing. I vomit words onto the page and I have to spend forever in edits cleaning it all up. Which works out because I'm a good editor but I only do that with my fiction. It would be silly and probably counterproductive to do it in a journal.

If I could just write a paragraph or two every time I cracked open my diary (which I would actually have to go and buy since I don't keep one) then I probably would journal on a regular basis. But I start writing and inevitably one thought leads to another and I'm two thousand words down the road before I know it.

When this happens in my novel, it's no big deal, I just fearlessly wield my delete key and cut out what doesn't work. Not so with a journal. I'm not exactly motivated to clean up what no one else will ever see. Who cares? And since no one else will ever see it, why write? I guess I'm coming to realize, though, that maybe the grandchildren of my seventy year old self might want to know what the me now thought and did. Maybe I'll create a hopeful file titled "Journal" and see if it calls me to fill it.

But now I blog. And before it starts soaking up the time I don't have, I'm going to use it as an exercise in concision.

Which is why I'm going to stop talking...

....now.