Writing as Exploration

Writing is an exploration, an investigation, if you will, of one person’s brain. Through the works of the great writers over the centuries, we can see their creativity, their personality, their opinions, their humour, their styles. Picture your favourite authors and how you think of them based on what you have read of their works. No two of them are the same. Their writing is like a fingerprint—a fingerprint of their brain.

Growing up, I filled pages of journals with the jottings of what happened to me each day. It was my way of mulling over the events of my life, of sorting through things that bothered me or excited me. There were times when I felt there was no one for me to talk to, and so my thoughts went onto the pages of my journal. I now write much less in my journal (mostly from a lack of time), but my thoughts and expressions come out in other areas of writing. Such as my blog.

Much of what I post here is exploration, an idea that has seized me and left me trying, if I can, to grasp it and make it solid. Some of it is good writing. Some of it is not. But it gives me a chance to explore, to try to sort through what is happened to me. As one of my recent posts about why I chose a midwife rather than a doctor. Another friend’s postings about her birth experiences (and the contrast between what she had wanted and what actually happened) got me mulling about what I want and why I was dissatisfied with my doctor and attracted to the midwife.

Such musings I could just record in the pages of my journal, to be locked away in the bookshelf and perhaps dragged out in another ten years when I want to review my life (if, at that point, I have the time and patience to wade through pages of mostly boring records of “today I cleaned the house” or “we made chili together for supper tonight”). Posting it on a blog makes it a conversation, a dialogue between me and those out there who chose to read it and respond.

Those comments—whether agreeing or disagreeing—are part of the exploration of the ideas. They push me deeper into the whys… why do I feel that way and why did I choose to write that? If my readers are not responding as I thought they would, have I expressed myself poorly? Was that really what I meant to say? As an editor as well as a writer, clear communication is important to me, so I must clarify my own ideas to express them to my audience.