Not too rambling, I hope

Kee and I have been awol for various reasons since--hoo boy--November, I see. Time to see if this thing can't be saved from the junk heap of the Internet.

I have been going back and forth on whether I even want to write. I had convinced myself that I just don't have what it takes, whether I actually wanted to write or not, and my short story "Late Night Radio" walked up and hit me in the head with a bag of lead pipes and said, "Hey! I'm actually a novel, dummy!" Way to be decisive, Nee. So that is something I have been working on in my own particular idiom, which means daydreaming while in the shower or washing dishes or doing the occasional craft project, but not really writing much. Yes, yes, I am on the fast track to success, you see.

Last night, I was reading online, as is my wont, and I came across this essay by Roger Ebert. Yes, Roger Ebert the film critic. He has a blog on the Chicago Sun Times web site, and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading his writing there. He writes with conviction but politeness on topics that would reduce others to snark and name-calling. Anyhow, the essay I read last night was about his online reading practices, and how he worries that it is affecting the way his brain works. If you look at the essay, he even cites a study that shows physical changes in the brain as a result of regular Internet use. He is concerned that his online search for that little charge you get--the frisson mentioned in the title of the piece--is resulting in an inability to engage with longer or deeper material. I recognize this frisson he speaks of--I realize that I have been looking for it in the 2-column-long list of RSS feeds I have found myself scanning multiple times a day. One day recently, I kept going back and refreshing it, over and over, as if suddenly a few dozen people would have hopped onto their computers to provide fresh fodder for my reading pleasure.

It also occurred to me, beyond Mr. Ebert's points, that the sites I was frequenting were themselves not very informative or deep. I like snark, but a steady diet of it is probably not too good for one's soul. Or mind. Last night in bed, I made a mental list of the sites on my feed, and it wasn't pretty. So this evening, I went through and weeded out the majority of feeds. I now have less than 10, and none are of the same type. Only 2 or 3 of them post regularly, so I won't be wading through a lot of updates. They are a mix of entertainment and information, but those that fall squarely under the heading "entertainment" must also have a certain something extra: sparkling wit (not just snark), engaging writing, or a perspective I wouldn't normally get. If I am going to spend my time and attention on something, it should be worth my while. (And if I decide I want to read the other stuff, I have a brain that contains the names of the other sites and can certainly find them on the Internet. I just won't have them piped into my home computer.)

In another blog essay I read recently from the science fiction author Jay Lake, he discussed deciding that the 2 most important things in his life were his daughter and his writing, and everything else would either have to fit around those or go away. TV? Bye-bye. Video games? Never got a foothold. (I seem to remember that he has talked about this before, but I decided that going back into his archives to look for it would probably be such a time suck that I wouldn't get around to finishing this entry. Score! for the rational mind.) And I realized that there are plenty of things even beyond my growing RSS feed that I allow to encroach on my time, without thinking about whether they are going to bring me closer to my goals. (Not that I am a goal-setter by nature. Maybe I should think about that.) Anyhow, I decided that Animal Crossing could get on without me for a while longer. Whenever I play, *whoosh!* there goes an hour, easy. So I gave Hannah my permission and blessing to play as me and send all my money to her character. It was enough to pay off the mortgage on her house and let her get a basement room. That's a lot of digital peaches picked and fish caught and shells collected and bugs netted and trees shaken.

Basically, this post is me saying that I have decided to not be so passive, to take an active approach to apportioning my time and giving myself the best chances to sit down and write. And that in turn entails acknowledging my fears (that is probably a post in itself) and not letting them dictate my actions. I can't decide if succeeding or failing is scarier, but doing nothing is saddest of all.