“A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.” — Charles Peguy
“We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.” — Diogenes
Two Different Worlds for Me
Ann V. Klotz wrote an essay for the Brevity Blog that began with the sentence: “I write the way I speak.” It stopped me in my tracks and had me recalling what my newspaper colleagues often said to me. “It’s a good thing Pat Bean doesn’t write the way she speaks.”
I think it was partially because of my Texas accent, but I knew it was also true in other way a well. I actually don’t write the way I speak. My thoughts and verbal communication skills get tangled up when my tongue is moving. The truth is I started writing because I discovered it was the best way for me to communicate.
It is common for me to sit down in front of a blank page on my computer thinking I’m going to write one thing and my fingers actually type something else. While the words might actually be on the same subject I sat down to write about, they are often not what I thought I was going to say.
Writing clarifies my thoughts and pushes ideas much deeper and clearer into my head. I can’t imagine what my life would be without the written word. Perhaps that’s because things only seem real to me after I write about them, or more likely I only remember things as they were after they become words on a page.
So do you write like you talk, or are more like me? Do you know?
Bean Pat: Ann V. Klotz’ Brevity blog in case you’re interested. I find the process other writers employ fascinating. http://tinyurl.com/ozxkd9h
Pat Bean's blog 
I am myself in both areas but i do not yep as well as i speak. lol
Ms Bean, I find myself wanting to write . . . . really aching to write, and I have moments where words come. Perhaps I just don’t really want to pay the price. I do not think I am ADD. Honestly, I think that I just have little esteem for what I might have to say. My sweet wife, sensing all of this, purchased for me Stephen King’s book “On Writing” which I am reading now. I think it might help. Be well!
When I saw these words, “My thoughts and verbal communication skills get tangled up when my tongue is moving. The truth is I started writing because I discovered it was the best way for me to communicate.” you had my full attention. My thoughts and verbal communication skills get so tangled up when I try to speak that I often just keep my mouth shut for fear of embarrasing myself.
I really enjoy your blog, Pat, and read every one of them.
Thank you, Lindy Barnes
I sort of write like I talk, but I don’t stumble as much when I write. I’m a klutzy talker (or, as you put it so well, “My thoughts and verbal communication skills get tangled up when my tongue is moving.”). I might be a klutzy writer, too, now that I think about it, but maybe not as twisted up as when I talk. 🙂