Why old farts mumble to themselves

I've written here before about my changing writing process as I get older. In particular, it takes me longer to move from mind to keyboard, from the brooding about story and playing out of mental scenes to the keyboard to transcribe them and work them through. This weekend, for example, I have done no work on my novel at the keyboard but a ton of work in my mind. I get a lot of the same satisfaction of creation from this, without expending the extra energy it takes to move the old fingers across the keys. I haven't yet started mumbling out these scenes, it's all interior mental work, "thinking, brooding," but I see that it's a very short step from this to vocalization, to mumbling these scenes to myself through the day.

Now when I was younger, I easily dismissed the mumbling old farts I encountered on the street as senile crazies with one foot in the grave. But what if they, or some of them, are writers?! Maybe they're just working on their new novel! The mumbling is the vocalization of the usual mental work in the process of building a story.

So if you see me on the street mumbling to myself, don't dismiss me or feel sorry for me. Instead say to yourself, Look at Deemer, he's really into his new book! He's on a roll!