You Have To Make Sense

 It is a shame that writing represents reality, but very rarely actually is reality. Sure, there is plenty of nonfiction. I bet there is even plenty of nonfiction that doesn't make up any details. But even then, we have a filter. Extraneous crap gets left out in editing. But so much of life is extraneous crap.

I can't have a conversation without tangents. My mind is working too hard at too many subjects to stay too focused on any one of them. When somebody makes a statement (including myself), my brain makes some kind of connection, and then is compelled to share that connected thought. And if I ever showed that kind of thing in writing, it would be awful.

Sure, there are types of writing where one's thoughts just sort of get spewed out. There's stream of consciousness, for one. But even in stream of consciousness, there is a flow (probably why they call it a stream). It may be a little jumbled or may have some gaps that need filling, but there is a sense to it.

If you showed the mind working like it really does, jumping from subject to subject with no introduction or explanation, sometimes not even having a single thing whatsoever to do with the previous subject, you would be accused of terrible writing (and rightly so).

Writing is all about communication. Words without sense are just gibberish. And gibberish is the antithesis of communication.