For anyone with a yen to exchange conversation and work with other writers, the Internet is a life saver. My cyber pals are virtually the only connection I have with people interested in writing what I want to write. I met another yesterday. Thanks to a publisher who followed through forwarding a comment I made about a poem I read on the Net, she wrote to me and even added another poem. I have writing friends scattered now in three countries: the US (of course), but also in France and now England. In fact, in the spring issue of an English journal I'll see a new poem of mine. Check out The Lowestoft Chronicle.
You may notice the new picture to the right. It's the cover for another short story out on www.bookstogonow.com, also available for Kindle and Nook. Maybe we can't hold these things and hug them the way I often have done with print on paper, but it's better than not being read at all! One of these stories has been published in a literary magazine, the other only online.
Technology, however, makes me more certain than ever that I don't want to let hard copy go. Some tiny electrical malfunction is all it would take to wipe out ten years' work! Paperless is a fine idea for some things, but I guess I haven't much faith in its ability to last.
Word processing has made writing so much easier, I'm afraid of using too many most of the time because it's so easy to change them, improve on them, and I lose the sense of how difficult or easy it is to read them. I'd never have finished more than a couple of stories, let alone some books, if it hadn't been for the boon the computer is to the compulsive rewriter. Still, it's probably a good idea to try to remember some of what we were taught decades ago.
I know one thing: even if I had Jane Austen's talent, I could never have written at a 2'x 3' table with a quill pen and finished half a dozen wonderful novels!
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