I had never been fond of
writing in high school or in my first attempt at
college, because I detested redoing my work time and
again in order to evolve from rough draft to finished
copy. What drudgery! So, rather than
working with an idea, organizing and polishing it as
I should, I would often simply let my draft effort
serve as the end product. Obviously, unless one
happens to be among those rare geniuses who can
produce finished literary gems extemporaneously, such
a product is bound to be disappointing. And if,
at the outset, one fully expects the final result to
be disappointing, then the level of enthusiasm one
can muster for the project will be limited, and the
dismal expectation will naturally be fulfilled.
But from the
moment I first sat down to play with a word
processor, things changed irreversibly! With a
computer one need not worry about the laborious
mechanics of writing and copying, but can simply let
the ideas flow spontaneously from the brain through
the fingers and onto the screen. Once there in
raw form, the ideas can easily be organized,
augmented, pruned, revised, and refined, until the
results are satisfactory. All one needs
are . . .
Ideas!
When I later became acquainted with electronic
bulletin boards, I discovered a bottomless well of
them! I found myself spending hours interacting with
others in that medium. Over time I not only
honed my writing skills, but also became more adept
at organizing my thoughts. And so I became an
enthusiastic (if less than superb) writer, even
tackling subjects like religion and politics, which I
would earlier have shunned.
And here we
are. I hope you enjoy!
=SAJ=