tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post2616720684136276464..comments2023-03-22T01:58:45.911-07:00Comments on let's talk about writing: technology and its relationship to making artSuzy Vitellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12836144962952322322noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post-44086648361550313522013-11-04T07:54:04.603-08:002013-11-04T07:54:04.603-08:00I keep thinking about your book room, Teri. The wa...I keep thinking about your book room, Teri. The way you manifest joy by surrounding yourself with things of beauty. It's an inspiration. xosuzy vitellohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14024767835598534053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post-79648778132972565592013-11-04T07:51:58.906-08:002013-11-04T07:51:58.906-08:00I hear ya, Averil. We have to save up our forced e...I hear ya, Averil. We have to save up our forced extrovert energy for the mother/daughter book tour!suzy vitellohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14024767835598534053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post-86725419889925921242013-11-04T07:36:08.714-08:002013-11-04T07:36:08.714-08:00"Sadness is poetic."
Oh, Louis. How I l..."Sadness is poetic."<br /><br />Oh, Louis. How I love that man. <br /><br />I need to have several hours in the day when I don't interact. I blog a couple of times a week and have great conversations which I treasure, but I can't do the whole Facebook/Twitter/constant email thing because it feels so overwhelming. My inner life is important to me and I'm introverted by nature, so it's not that difficult for me to carve out the time. A lot of times in my car, I turn off the radio and just drive and let myself be quiet. It feels wonderful. Vacation-ish. <br /><br />That said, when I'm sitting at a computer, I do feel the urge to constantly check in. I have to really get away from the devices in order to settle back into my thoughts. (Which is why I'm always at the coffee shop, alone in a crowd.)<br /><br />- Averil<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post-66273986211087081122013-11-04T06:54:06.516-08:002013-11-04T06:54:06.516-08:00I'm so freaking distracted that I don't ev...I'm so freaking distracted that I don't even want to know just how distracted and disjointed I really am. Kind of like not wanting to have all of your credit card statements on the same table together so you don't *really* know how much you're in debt.<br /><br />I had a great break, and completely unplanned, while I was gone for a week with my son. I had a data plan on my phone, but it was limited so all I could really do was text with friends and husband back home. No Facebooking, No Words With Friends (gasp!), no checking stuff I didn't need lest I be charged out the wazoo for my data use. By the time I came home, I was sadly back to FB, but I actually deleted some apps from my phone ---- even Words with Friends!! And 2 weeks later, I can't say I miss a single one of those apps. I feel like I tripped a circuit breaker in my brain.<br /><br />I still take notes on paper when I'm out and about. There's something about having to find the paper and pen and get it down that relieves my anxiety about possibly forgetting it.Terihttp://tericarter.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post-89427310946531389512013-11-03T20:37:06.613-08:002013-11-03T20:37:06.613-08:00OMG, Josie, yes! That rant is fantastic. Let yours...OMG, Josie, yes! That rant is fantastic. Let yourself feel sad. And pissed. And alone. I agree!<br /><br />As far as the impetus to be wired at all times, I also do communications for a day job. (I manage two corporate facebooks and god forbid someone finds a piece of machinery in their bag of tortilla strips and tells the other 100,000 "fans" about it on the wall.) The way all the accounts are linked together, it makes more willpower than not running upstairs every five minutes to wolf down the leftover Halloween Starbursts.<br /><br />The kid/technology thing, though (referring to the Louis CK rant), it's a slippery slope. Like many other parents, I came to texting as a way to continue having a relationship with my older kids when they went to college. They rarely answered the phone or returned email queries, but I soon realized that they were comfortable engaging in epic texting correspondence. One of the pieces in today's book review broaches the reason why. Turns out, we're able to avoid intimacy when we text, which helps young adults individuate and have that "I want to know you're there, but don't want meaningful interaction" thing with their parents.<br /><br />I'm good with that, actually. I think it's a tool that's both appropriate and benign. But only to help them through a time-based phase. When texting becomes a substitute for active engagement of any sort, then we're fucked.Suzy Vitellohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12836144962952322322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post-79694045594677861962013-11-03T20:18:52.613-08:002013-11-03T20:18:52.613-08:00It's hard to know where to draw that line, eh?...It's hard to know where to draw that line, eh? It's seems that there are now infinite ways to blur the edges between our writing projects and our interaction with social media.<br /><br />I remember ten years ago, in grad school, back when only college students had Facebook. My MFA concentration was creative nonfiction, and there was this lecture given by Tara Ison, where she cautioned us about mining our lives for material to such a degree that we were living our lives purely in order to create story, at the expense of actually being present in our lives.<br /><br />How many times have you chuckled when watching a concert-goer, or a tourist holding an iPad up like a divining rod in order to capture something that was really going un-experienced?Suzy Vitellohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12836144962952322322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post-14744208223920265952013-11-03T16:38:48.740-08:002013-11-03T16:38:48.740-08:00i like to imagine being a bestselling novelist who...i like to imagine being a bestselling novelist who unplugs for weeks at a time to focus 100 percent on whatever I am currently writing. i can't help but wonder how much stronger my writing would be and how much quicker i would get to that magic place where you're just a vessel for the real writing if i had less obstacles keeping me from being alone with my thoughts. <br /><br />my current work includes being plugged in a lot and, b/c it's a virtual office, constantly needing to check email. this is course leads me to check facebook, check twitter, check other email accounts. it's like a nervous tick, that lasts longer than a tick as roam through each and every channel where someone could possibly making the slightest of gesture in my direction ("John Doe liked the article you shared on Linkedin..."). It's maddening. But you know what I'm going to do after I log off here? Go on Facebook and ask my local bookstore manager if she would please save me a copy of today's NYT so I can get that Book Review article. See? Madness. <br /><br />I love this cell phone rant by Louis CK (although, I'm not sure if it's the subject matter or the deep/confusing love I have for Louis CK): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1cJoseyhttp://www.joseyfritz.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30074355.post-61384281400305879272013-11-03T15:32:50.951-08:002013-11-03T15:32:50.951-08:00This is a fabulous post, Suzy. I've been think...This is a fabulous post, Suzy. I've been thinking about these things quite a bit lately. <br /><br />It's coming up on a year since I finally got an iPhone. All those years of doing without--just fine, thank you--and now I find myself totally addicted. Facebook is especially my heroin. I mainline it. While I still get behind on my blog reading, because that takes more effort to go to individual sites, FB is a simple scroll down the page. Unfortunately, I find myself scrolling nonstop, several times a day. UGH.<br /><br />I've thought about taking a sabbatical, but since FB is where most of the reader interaction takes place for my current writing project, I feel totally sucked-in. Can't expect others to read and comment if we don't read what they have to say, too. It's a win-lose situation.<br /><br />Need to find that gray area... Sigh.sherry stanfa-stanleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00680055033925659511noreply@blogger.com