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As illustrated by the lack of recent posts, I've had nothing to say as of late. Like, literally, nothing. I’m beginning to wonder if I should file a missing person report:
Missing: One Muse, last seen in October. Fairy wings and
a mischievous smile. Prone to appearing and disappearing at will.
Silliness aside, I started thinking about the wondrous, elusive,
addictive, and maddening process that is writing. Where, exactly, do ideas come
from? And what is it that compels us to capture those ideas in writing and
share them?
Humans are storytellers, and while it might be tempting to
imagine we developed a system of symbols to preserve our stories, that's no
more than a romantic notion. The truth behind the development of writing is
more mundane. In ancient Mesopotamia, the Sumerians and the Akkadians lived in
the same region, but spoke completely different languages. In order to do
business, they needed to keep reliable records. The oldest examples of writing
found are clay tablets with inscriptions believed to represent sacks of grain
and heads of cattle.[1]
Perhaps it's even more amazing then, that we took those
ancient symbols created to keep agricultural records and morphed them into a
way not only to pass traditional stories along to future generations, but also
to create and share new stories.
From the first alphabet, a cuneiform script, developed in
the 14th century B.C. in Syria,[2] to
Johann Gutenberg's mechanization of printing in 1440,[3]
modern writers owe a debt of gratitude to our predecessors who saw the
possibilities in clay tablets and movable type. Shouldn't we do right by them
and keep it up?
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