A very interesting piece. I felt an unpleasant sense of recognition of myself reading this insightful piece.. Eg listening to a lot of podcasts. I have to make a conscious decision eg stay off line for a couple of days, . Then I have more time for my own reflections or just have more quiet space. The idea of overload as well as distraction can be an issue,
I need to read indepth writing off line, too. Your comment: Reading or and focusing on things which aren't the current trend or thing, this sounds a good thing.
Plus privacy may get overlooked in this internet frantic vying for attention for status maybe.
On a positive side worthwhile connections can be made,
As a basically non-writer, I find this interesting, particularly “You bought a copy of the Writer’s and Artists Yearbook and mailed your short stories (I hate short stories) off to little magazines that no-one read in the hopes that if you were successful at that enough times, you could get a publisher or agent interested in a novel you had on the go.” – this also seems like an intensely social, feedback-seeking mode of engagement, and also something of a popularity contest.
In the end, if you wanted to write in a way that’s not “social”, why not just journal?
What is evident though is that there has been a tremendous shortening of feedback cycles. The focus on near-time “metrics” seems of a piece here. As a software guy, this is funny to me, because we have seen the same thing over the same time frame with fast-cycle “agile” methodologies over a longer requirements research-design-implement-validate engineering cycle, which has certainly helped ship faster, but same as in writing, what is being shipped has … not necessarily improved.
Add to that that the medium itself has increasingly focussed on microblogging (X, now Notes); also consider that sharing on Substack heavily centers on snippetting out short selections and all of it seems to drive writing in the direction of dinner party wit, bon mots, a staccato of epigrams. I also notice that the new media environment has absolutely shot attention spans in the general public (me).
Great article! I'm in the same boat. I am trying to write a book and struggling to muster the concentration required. It was much easier in 2015 when I had a Nokia.
A very interesting piece. I felt an unpleasant sense of recognition of myself reading this insightful piece.. Eg listening to a lot of podcasts. I have to make a conscious decision eg stay off line for a couple of days, . Then I have more time for my own reflections or just have more quiet space. The idea of overload as well as distraction can be an issue,
I need to read indepth writing off line, too. Your comment: Reading or and focusing on things which aren't the current trend or thing, this sounds a good thing.
Plus privacy may get overlooked in this internet frantic vying for attention for status maybe.
On a positive side worthwhile connections can be made,
As a basically non-writer, I find this interesting, particularly “You bought a copy of the Writer’s and Artists Yearbook and mailed your short stories (I hate short stories) off to little magazines that no-one read in the hopes that if you were successful at that enough times, you could get a publisher or agent interested in a novel you had on the go.” – this also seems like an intensely social, feedback-seeking mode of engagement, and also something of a popularity contest.
In the end, if you wanted to write in a way that’s not “social”, why not just journal?
What is evident though is that there has been a tremendous shortening of feedback cycles. The focus on near-time “metrics” seems of a piece here. As a software guy, this is funny to me, because we have seen the same thing over the same time frame with fast-cycle “agile” methodologies over a longer requirements research-design-implement-validate engineering cycle, which has certainly helped ship faster, but same as in writing, what is being shipped has … not necessarily improved.
Add to that that the medium itself has increasingly focussed on microblogging (X, now Notes); also consider that sharing on Substack heavily centers on snippetting out short selections and all of it seems to drive writing in the direction of dinner party wit, bon mots, a staccato of epigrams. I also notice that the new media environment has absolutely shot attention spans in the general public (me).
Insightful article! Thanks
The Writers and Artists yearbook is a flashback
Haha I knew someone would appreciate that
Great article! I'm in the same boat. I am trying to write a book and struggling to muster the concentration required. It was much easier in 2015 when I had a Nokia.