Monday, September 28, 2009

"Flock you."

"Flocking' behavior lands on social networking sites" says an article today on USA TODAY. It's talking about the social benefits of online behavior, and isn't really about blogs.

But still....

I think of my blogging and my bulletin board activities as being surprisingly social.

Writing this blog has been an unexpected pleasure. I love to write, but I've had no outlet until this came along.

The blog has been more sociable, in a strange sort of way, than I expected. "Familiarity at a distance," is the way I phrased it early on, but it's been a bit more than that. People's personalities come through surprisingly accurately on their blogs and on their comments. I really do feel like I know them.

Meanwhile....

I was reading another blog which showed pictures of 20 different S.F. writer's offices, and felt an unexpected twang. Now....I told myself when I stopped writing novels that I wouldn't second guess myself -- and I knew the day would come when I'd be tempted to second guess myself.

But I thought long and hard about it when I made the decision; and I decided it was either the store and my family or -- writing.

Those writer's dens looked kind of cool. Some were zen-like in their purity, others were big messes.

But my office would've been a golden cage, even if I been wildly successful. I would've stayed isolated my whole life.

Being in the store has been good for me. It has socialized me, opened me up. And it has also been an unexpected pleasure -- that is, here at the latter half of my career it has become less a stressful, overwhelming place and more of a relaxed, enjoyable place. I just had to survive this long.

And like I said above, I've found my social life through the business, and surprisingly, online. It's probably obvious to most young people who use the social networks, but there are opportunities online I never would've expected.

So writing fiction online -- and not getting paid for it, no longer seems like a waste to me. I'm seeing it as more and more a realistic option. Especially since the biggest hangup I had about my novels was trying to market them. I really hated the whole process.

It's just a matter of writing....

1 comment:

H. Bruce Miller said...

"But my office would've been a golden cage, even if I been wildly successful. I would've stayed isolated my whole life."

Not necessarily. Not all writers act like J.D. Salinger; many are very sociable characters. I think if you have a sociable personality you'll be sociable no matter what your line of work is -- unless you decide to take up the profession of hermit.