Devonne Brown

“I’ve taken my typewriter to the hospital with me for kidney infections. I have taken it on camping trips, and the sand has gotten in the keys. It is just like the most fierce habit you can imagine. It is there, and it stares at you like a conscience.” ~ Erma Bombeck

I must write. It is no longer a habit, but an extra organ in my body beside  my heart. It beats and pumps blood. It has its own chamber. It is where my passion lies. 

Writing is my lover. It listens to my sorrow and my joy. It laughs with me and at me. It makes fun of me. It shows me my weaknesses and makes me a better woman. Writing teaches me. Where I go, my computer goes.

I’ve taken my computer everywhere I go to write every day. To write a story about a cat or use what I see in a story about something. Sometimes it’s a romance, sometimes it’s a poem, or sometimes it’s a story of murder and horror. I’ve written of suicide. Mine or others. 

All I’ve written is a memoir metaphor of my life in fiction or flat out non fictional recounting of experience that no one will ever find on this computer. No one is ever meant to read these snippets of details. I would devastate those who knew me or were involved. Most of the juicy stuff is disguised as fiction anyway.

On my home computer, I have committed spells in the lines of plays in the lines of plays by writing them down. There’s an undeniable brain- hand connection in writing and learning. Writing keeps my  mind powerful. It keeps my vocabulary sharp, I hope it does anyway, that’s what research says.

Writing is didactic. I also have a school computer. The school computer teaches me how to teach, and what to teach. It shows me how to think. It sorts out my decisions, right and wrong, long after I’ve made them, especially the wrong ones. I remember them all because of writing. I take notes and write them down, but choose to learn or ignore the lessons. I’ve ignored too much and lain awake at night, wondering and worrying if I’ve made the wrong choice. If I’ve said the wrong thing.

Although I’ve replaced Erma Bombeck’s typewriter with a computer, the principle is the same. I write with my heart. Right or wrong, I observe, fabricate from experience and memory, and tell tales of hyperbolic nonfiction, I write from a special chamber pumping life into my soul. It has to be done at least once a day.