The World Down a Wire
The new issue of POSTSCRIPTS magazine, number 12, is now out (hint, hint):
http://tinyurl.com/24yrq9
Consequently, I thought it time to post my guest editorial from the prior issue, number 11.
And here it is.
THE WORLD DOWN A WIRE
I no longer work alone.
For centuries now, since the birth of writing as a full-time professional trade, a writer’s life has traditionally been quasi-monastic or hermit-like—at least during working hours. (We know the deserved reputation writers have as wild off-duty revelers, a counterbalance to their enforced concentration and seclusion. That’s why you’ll find me each night in my pajamas, pen and notepad in hand, reading whatever book I have to review next, a cup of chammomile tea to hand.)
Oh, sure, there were always cafes to write in, and writers who claimed to produce imperishable and copious wordage in such environments. Color me doubtful. One could even, as Harlan Ellison was occasionally wont to do, write in store windows, for the maximum in public exposure and interaction. But the vast majority of the world’s books, fiction or non-fiction, got composed in isolation, the product of many laborious hours characterized by writerly butt plunked down firmly in chair, blinds drawn (or sun flooding in), in silence (or with music blasting), in a wooded cabin or in the middle of a city, but in all cases uninterrupted by the continuous and/or frequent presence of other living humans.
No more.
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http://tinyurl.com/24yrq9
Consequently, I thought it time to post my guest editorial from the prior issue, number 11.
And here it is.
THE WORLD DOWN A WIRE
I no longer work alone.
For centuries now, since the birth of writing as a full-time professional trade, a writer’s life has traditionally been quasi-monastic or hermit-like—at least during working hours. (We know the deserved reputation writers have as wild off-duty revelers, a counterbalance to their enforced concentration and seclusion. That’s why you’ll find me each night in my pajamas, pen and notepad in hand, reading whatever book I have to review next, a cup of chammomile tea to hand.)
Oh, sure, there were always cafes to write in, and writers who claimed to produce imperishable and copious wordage in such environments. Color me doubtful. One could even, as Harlan Ellison was occasionally wont to do, write in store windows, for the maximum in public exposure and interaction. But the vast majority of the world’s books, fiction or non-fiction, got composed in isolation, the product of many laborious hours characterized by writerly butt plunked down firmly in chair, blinds drawn (or sun flooding in), in silence (or with music blasting), in a wooded cabin or in the middle of a city, but in all cases uninterrupted by the continuous and/or frequent presence of other living humans.
No more.
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