Finding New Blogs

While in the process of reading user comments that I've missed to some of my older posts, I've discovered a whole slew of new blogs and websites. You can view some of them in my list of links in the left-hand column. I enjoy other people's blogs...reading of their most personal stuttering experiences, ones they don't mind sharing, and also getting insight into how they think and how they feel about their own experience. I also like it when they come up with interesting titles to their blog. "My Stupid Mouth" is particularly good and would make a great title for a book on stuttering. I enjoyed his recent post about using the telephone and how it is a symbol of fear and frustration for most stutterers.

I also enjoyed his recent post on Celebrity Stutterers...and I share some of his thoughts. I have been somewhat skeptical of the exhaustive lists of famous stutterers, wondering if some of them had or have a stutter that is what most of us chronic stutterers know of as a "stuttering problem". Most of us have had many people tell us, after finding out that we stutter, that they stutter as well...as most people do (they say). Well, we know that that is bunk. What these people are talking about are moments of dysfluency...the sort that everyone has now and again. This is not true stuttering, however. I believe that they say this to us in order to make us feel better. In reality, however, this statement serves to diminish or trivialize what is a very real and debilitating affliction.

It's not that we want to revel in the affliction. It's that we want it taken seriously. Everyone in the world stumbles and trips over their feet now and then. But, wouldn't it be silly to say that it makes us crippled or handicap?

Thinking of Writing a Book

Yes, I've been out of my own loop, doing other projects that have needed my attention, but I sincerely want to re-focus my attention on this blog. Thanks for all who have been commenting on my posts...I promise to respond to them all. Also, if you've linked to me and then informed me that you did so, asking for a reciprocation: you will get it. Thank you.

I'm in the process of outlining an idea for a book on stuttering. It will not be an academic work, since I have no credentials for such a thing. Rather, it will be somewhat of a guide for non-stutters. I was talking with a friend recently about my stuttering and about some common reactions I get from people in general. Some of them are humorous...most of them are the result of ignorance on the experience of stuttering and what we go through.

My friend said that such a book would be interesting and had the potential for being entertaining and even humorous. I am a writer by trade, though the professional writing I have done is not related to the endeavor of writing a book. I find the prospect very appealing, however, so I will embark on the journey and see where it takes me.

I do have a "rambling satire" blog that I maintain and even had it transformed into a book ("Blook") for the Lulu Blook Contest. The book and the blog is entitled, "Don't Read This". I would explain what rambling satire is, but it is probably best explained by simply reading some of the meandering entries for yourself, linked below:

Don't Read This

Anyway, I am back and hopefully I'll be able to relay some recent insights I've had about my stuttering, as well as some of my more recent experiences.