I’ve been thinking a lot lately. This is a largely unintentional side-effect of some current personal life happenings that I won’t share, simply to save you the whining. And yet it remains, there have been a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my skull. I’m sure I’ve been annoying my friends, texting and IMing them about some pretty abstract things.

Last night, I got to thinking about why I write. Whitney Turland wrote recently on why she writes and asked for commenters to chime in on why they write. And I intend to, but I’ll do that in its own blog post. In a nutshell, though, I write to think.

Rather than killing trees, thinking in notebooks that are then scattered around my room, gathering dust and doing nothing for anyone, I’ve decided that this blog should fulfill that purpose. I’ve been trying to write for an audience, trying to write what I think people will care about. But this is my blog. It’s supposed to be my presence. And so I intend to let it archive my thoughts, and guide my thinking. Perhaps you will take the time to comment, to help shape my thinking. Perhaps you won’t. That’s entirely up to you.

What does this mean for you? It means more posts that you may not care about. It means more of my personality, more of the things I care about, and more variety on this blog. It does not mean more personal problems or interests that mean nothing to anyone but those closest to me. Instead of posting about how Charlie and Jane are fighting, I’ll be looking at why they’re fighting, and pondering over which of them (anonymously, of course) is right. I will be trying to refrain from adding unnecessary personal information into posts as possible, focusing instead on the ideas, the abstract.

Maybe you’ll like this. Maybe you won’t. If you don’t, I’d love to hear from you on why. But I’ve grown distant from my writing, and my lack of practice has weakened and poisoned my abilities. I intend to get back to my writing, and that means writing my thoughts, not the thoughts I think people want to hear about.