Verbal vs. Written Communication
I’m generally not altogether articulate or coherent when I’m speaking with someone, in person or on the phone. Every sentence, every word – you only get one shot to get it right, or you wind up stumbling over yourself. My problem is that I change direction mid-sentence – or worse, change word mid-word – and the prose comes spilling out of my mouth like the tinkle of an excitable puppy. Every time I talk to my mom on the phone, she has to remind me to slow down so she can follow – I don’t like waiting for my mouth to catch up with my mind, so when I’m excited about something, I try to say it all as quick as I can, lest I forget some detail in the process of verbalizing it.
Which is why I prefer writing things down. It gives me the chance to give it a once-over before anyone else has to try to make sense of it, and that’s got to be better than the alternative. The only problem is that I can’t type as fast as I can think or speak, so bits and pieces go missing – all those fragmented half-sentences that I would usually speak are either lost forever, or if I’m lucky, merge to form something more reasonable before seeing the light of day.
