Technology is a funny thing.
Technology has allowed writers to
do more and reach more people directly than at any other time in the course of
history. Nowadays, any writer who spends a little time educating him/herself
can write, edit, format, and publish his own book and put it up for sale in an
online market viewed by millions of people a day. That’s pretty impressive when
you think about it. Especially when you realize this was almost impossible as
little as ten years ago.
But that technology which has so
empowered us also comes with a dark side. A malevolent force so black and insidious that
we often don’t even realize its dangers until we have fallen deep within its
steely clutches.
An evil known as Facebook.
It lulls you in with it’s siren
call of sociability. It even lures authors into it’s deathly embrace with the
promise of marketing and exposure. But that’s not what it really does. Oh no,
the reality is far different. What it really does is something so pernicious
that many writers do not see it happening until they are already in trouble…for
it does just about the worst thing you can do it to a writer.
It wastes time.
It sucks us in, and before we know
it we are a week behind on our editing, and that last chapter is still only
half written. It even gets in our head so that when we are trying to focus on a
particular scene, half of our brain is wondering what we are missing that one
of our friends in another state might be
doing. And what if somebody wants to chat? Oh no! We dare not fail to keep
checking in just so we don’t miss such an opportunity!
Argh! That last is the worst part,
because a writer truly needs to be focused.
So I’m going to work on taming this
evil beast. I shall forbid myself from going near it before noon for a
beginning. We’ll see how that works. It’s not like anybody really has much to
say before then anyways. I think I might also put it off limits after eight
thirty as well. That’s when the kids go to bed…prime time for writing.
It ain’t much, but I now have a
plan :P
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