A Shift in Voice

A few years ago, I wrote something for a class at BYU. I wouldn't let my husband read it because it was typewritten and I didn't think that I was quite myself when typing. I have kept a journal since I was twelve (I think) and for almost the entire time always used blank books or journals to write in. My brother, a computer programmer, has had an electronic journal for years. That always made sense to me because his voice coming through the computer has always seemed natural. I only ever used the computer to write fancy-shmancy final drafts of papers for writing classes or sometimes for classes I didn't enjoy but had to take for academic purposes. Writing on topics or in ways I didn't choose always sounded fake to me when I would proofread my assignments. Of course it was always me who put the ideas into words and onto paper, but it wasn't ME.

It's a different world technologically from even just five years ago. Email has taken the place of written letters. Blogging has filled a gap between me and people with whom I would like to keep current. Facebook has become the fastest way to get in touch with a lot of people I know. And then sometime in the past few years, my typing became WAY faster than handwriting. My husband and I finally went electronic with our journal writing when the journals we liked to use became hard to find. We also realized that, although computers do fail and information gets lost, it's a lot easier to back up an electronic file than it is to protect an ever-increasing number of books from every environmental hazard.

So now I blog. I'm going to try it out and see how it goes.