The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt it didn't matter. -- Edward Albee

I want to write about how much harder it is to speak than to write sometimes, but even the written words won't come for me right now. This is one of those times where if I was using paper and pen instead of a computer, I'd've spent the last hour crumpling up page after page and tossing it over my shoulder. As has been said, "Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies" (attributed to either Terri Guillemets or Emme Woodhull-Bäche). Even so, I prefer it to speaking, for while they sometimes take their time, the words always come when I'm writing, and they usually don't when I'm speaking.

I've always been better at writing than speaking; the latter is a frustrating mess in which I struggle fruitlessly to come up with the right words at the right moment and I don't make any sense, nor do I share anything I intended to say. Once I met up with a former friend to talk about why we had parted ways; yes, we talked, but when we parted I realized I hadn't said any of the things I'd meant to say. I asked him if he would read a letter from me expressing those unsaid thoughts. I wasn't able to speak the words I wanted to speak, but they flowed comfortably from my pen.

Some say that writing is cowardly, that if you have something to say you should just say it. But "the role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say" (Anaïs Nin). There are always things I want to say, but I don't know how to say them. Those things I am most passionate about are the ones I find most difficult to express through speaking, and even sometimes through writing. Hart Crane said that "One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment." Even with my best writing I am never completely satisfied, as there are many things words simply cannot express. But when I have something I want to say, most times I prefer to write it. It is the form through which I communicate best.