The laptop freed writers from their storage rooms, basements, attics, garages, bedrooms, kitchens, studios, hovels, apartments, homes, tents and just about any place they could get a few scribbles in. Now a writer can join the larger world with nothing more than an outlet to recharge as a requirement. And the effect on writing of no longer being in the Garrott of absolute silence: dilution probably for a more diluted culture. But maybe a breath for the writer who can just no longer take that grinding solitude that screams: YOU AREN'T WORKING HARD ENOUGH.
So out to the populace in a corner table and a cup of joe and some pastry. View not required. Corners preferred and outlets coveted. The writer takes his place among those who prefer hubub over the bone cracking silence of solitude. And so that novel short story essay poem now competes for the divided attention as two ladies armed with IPADS duel over kid photos or the minister IPADING and laptopping and texting in perfect holy tandem or the tattooed pierced couple deciphering online games or the teenagers teenaging with a million texts and hunched over giggles while Facebooking and twittering on the rocket fueled of double espressos with whipped cream toppings.
But the writer gives thanks. He or she is writing on the collective buzz. The quality is not so important as the act that is still being performed. No first drafts. That requires solitude, but rewriting can be done much the way driving is done automatically and with some detachment. But then comes the rub. Is the work suffering? Probably. But for some there could be no work without the buzz of unshackled camaraderie with others trying to sluff off the workaday world by hiding in the last outposts of civilized life. The coffee house.
Write on.
www.billhazelgrove.com
Rocket Man will blast off this summer
So out to the populace in a corner table and a cup of joe and some pastry. View not required. Corners preferred and outlets coveted. The writer takes his place among those who prefer hubub over the bone cracking silence of solitude. And so that novel short story essay poem now competes for the divided attention as two ladies armed with IPADS duel over kid photos or the minister IPADING and laptopping and texting in perfect holy tandem or the tattooed pierced couple deciphering online games or the teenagers teenaging with a million texts and hunched over giggles while Facebooking and twittering on the rocket fueled of double espressos with whipped cream toppings.
But the writer gives thanks. He or she is writing on the collective buzz. The quality is not so important as the act that is still being performed. No first drafts. That requires solitude, but rewriting can be done much the way driving is done automatically and with some detachment. But then comes the rub. Is the work suffering? Probably. But for some there could be no work without the buzz of unshackled camaraderie with others trying to sluff off the workaday world by hiding in the last outposts of civilized life. The coffee house.
Write on.
www.billhazelgrove.com
Rocket Man will blast off this summer
