Category: Conversations with Poe

Me: I have a little problem.

Poe: Oh?

Me: This is the third morning in a row that someone left a message taped to my monitor in my home office that reads, ‘Get an Internet connection in here or the bunny gets it.’  You wouldn’t know who did that, would you?

Poe:  Hmm.  That is a perplexing mystery.

Me: Because first off, I don’t have a bunny.

Poe: Perhaps it was meant in a metaphorical sense.

Me: Yeah, still trying to parse that one.  And second off, I’m never going to have an Internet connection in my home office.

Poe: And why is that?  As a completely impartial observer in this, one who spends a lot of time in your office with no connection to the outside world, I’m just curious.

Me: That’s just it.  While there’s obviously great value in being connected, there’s also value in being disconnected.  I’m a big believer that creativity and innovation need both solitude and stimulation to really thrive.  It’s like taking a breath.  Stimulation is taking in the breath.  Solitude is letting it out.  Stimulation can come from lots of sources, but the Internet is obviously a big one.  It’s also the most powerful tool for communication and collaboration the world has ever known.  But you couldn’t design a more perfect device for distraction.

In fact, I’ve taken it much farther lately.  I’ve been doing my best to live what I call a plugged-unplugged life.  Since I spend so much time online in my work at Western Oregon University — where I’m just about as plugged-in as someone can be — I live almost completely unplugged when at home.  No Internet at all.  Incidentally, it’s also why I don’t have a comment section or forum on my blog.  I have nothing against comment sections on blogs.  But maintaining a viable comment section, one worth doing and doing well, takes time. And with time in such short supply these days, and because I’m trying to maintain this healthier plugged/unplugged approach to modern life, I need to be able to pop in and out of the information stream a little more judiciously than I’ve done in the past.

Plus there’s now so many ways for people to interact and connect, that it hardly seems necessary to have a comment section on a blog.  If something I’ve posted here provokes a strong reaction from someone, and they want to write something in response that gets more public exposure, well, they can post it to their own site or blog.  That’s the best kind of dialog, after all!

Poe: How is that working?

Me: It’s wonderful, though it’s also challenging.  Modern life makes it pretty hard to let go of the Internet completely, and I’m not the only person in the household, so it’s not entirely my call, but I don’t check email, don’t surf the Web, don’t do social media — all of that is done when not at home.  If it’s personal, and not appropriate to do on the university’s dime, I just squeeze it in during my lunch hour or on the smart phone when away from home.  I use my smart phone too much for all kinds of legitimate life-improving things to completely get rid of it, which is part of the challenge, but when I’m in the house, I just leave it by my bedside.  Just doing that one thing rather than carrying it with me everywhere has really helped.

It’s a strategy I’d recommend to lots of people.  Not just writers.  Anyone who feels like being so tethered to the Great and Powerful Hive Mind is not always healthy.

Poe: So really no Internet connection in here, eh?

Me: I’m afraid you’ll have to make do reading all those trashy books on my bookshelves — the ones you claim you would never read but are always mysteriously in the wrong order.

Poe: Hmm.  Another perplexing mystery.

Me: I had to put aside seventy thousand words of a manuscript  the other day.

Poe: Yikes!

Me: You’re Edgar Alan Poe, and the best you can do is ‘yikes’?

Poe: I have been attempting of late to modernize my speech a bit.

Me: That sounds more like you. Anyway, it wasn’t a bad thing. The project wasn’t working and I needed some distance from it. I’m already fifty pages into a new book and it’s going well. What’s interesting to me is how my attitude about this might have been totally different ten years ago, maybe even two years. I probably would have been very depressed. But now, I think, well, that’s just part of the process, and you get on with it. That’s when I realized something.

Poe: And what would that be?

Me: I crossed some kind of Rubicon. I stopped trying to become a writer and simply became one. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t think of myself as a writer before, but I no longer feel I have to prove to myself that I am. Or to anyone.  I’m the writer I want to be.

Poe: So you’ve achieved all of your goals and dreams?

Me: Oh no. I’m more driven than ever. But it’s different. I’ve relaxed, I guess. I’ve released myself form the outcome to some degree and just focused on the doing of it. Maybe it sells, maybe it doesn’t, but once I’ve done what I need to do, that’s out of my hands. Maybe it’s partly because I’m hitting one of those big birthdays in a couple months, too, but I suddenly realized that I was living the life I wanted to live. I’d spent so many years preparing to live it that it kind of snuck up on me, and when I finally took a hard look at the whole balance of my life, I realized that it was all right there. I just needed to relax into it. And when that happened, a lot of stuff I used to worry about didn’t matter any more.

Poe: Such as?

Me: A lot of things. Going to writing workshops or conferences, for one. If I want to go, I’ll go, but I’m a lot pickier about them now — which is saying something, because I was picky before. The labels other people apply to me. Who cares if I’m a full time writer or not? Really, does that label matter? Nope. It doesn’t matter to the reader, that’s for sure. Sales, rejections, awards, reviews  . . . I’m not saying these things don’t mean anything, because that would be lying, but I don’t sweat them as much now, for good or bad. It’s like I’m more driven than ever by putting one word in front of the other, of my own internal compass of what I should be doing as a writer. I trust that instinct now.

Poe: And you didn’t before?

Me: Not as much as I should have.

Poe: Sounds as if you’re saying — and I’m attempting to use a modern colloquialism here — that you just don’t give a shit what other people think.

Me. Wow. That’s definitely modernizing your speech.

Poe: Thank you. I’ve been reading your Elmore Leonard collection.

Me: Nice. Can’t go wrong studying dialog from that guy. But yeah, I think you’ve got the right spirit. I guess another way of saying it is that I know what kind of writer I want to be, and the life I want to live, and I’m no longer seeking anyone’s permission or approval to be it. I’m just living it.

Poe:  So I heard J.D. died the other day.

Scott:  J.D.?  As in Salinger?

Poe:  Yes, didn’t you hear?

Scott:  Oh, I heard.  I’m just curious how the news got to you since I don’t have the Internet or the radio in here.

Poe:  Oh, you know, when you’re a famous writer, you tend to just know when one among us has passed. 

Scott:  Ah.  Well.  You see, you’re not really a famous writer.  You’re a fictional construct manifested by my imagination in the form of an action figure.

Poe:  Details, details. 

Scott:  You know, I have been thinking about Salinger lately, though.  I have to admit, when I sat down to write The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, there was part of me that really was trying to capture the same authenticity of voice that he did.  I’ve even described the story as Catcher in the Rye meets Thelma and Louise. 

Poe:  So what are you saying?  You want to move to New Hampshire and live as a hermit?

Scott:  There are days.  But no, I’ve been thinking how there’s this rumor Salinger has a safe full of manuscripts.  I mean, he hasn’t published anything in over 50 years.  He told the New York Times a couple decades ago that he still writes, but just for him.  I’ve been thinking about whether that’s a good or bad thing. 

Poe:  How so?  If it makes him happy, what’s the difference?

Scott:  To him?  None.  Catcher made him extraordinarily rich, so he didn’t need to write for money any more.  But there’s something about writing for an audience, for readers, that I think demands a certain amount of engagement with the world.  Writing is communication, after all.  If you’re not communicating with anyone other than yourself, are you still communicating?

Poe:  Ah, but that’s not to say my friend J.D. wasn’t writing for readers.  He just didn’t feel rushed to share those later works with readers.  There’s a big difference between publication and writing.  Once it’s written, what’s the difference whether it’s read or not?  It doesn’t change what it is.  Take the Diary of Anne Frank.  An extraordinary work, and yet there’s no indication she was writing for anyone other than herself. 

Scott:  Well, that’s what I’m driving at.  That’s one book, not a career.  Sadly, we’ll never know what Frank would have written after that.  If I want to become the best storyteller I can be, how can I do that without some kind of feedback?  I’m not talking about critics, per se.  I’m talking about audience.  If you make a movie, how do you know if that movie entertains unless you screen it?  But there’s the other side of me that says you’re much more likely to stay true to your own unique vision, your own voice, the less you let others influence you — at least directly.  Influences are all around us. 

Poe:  Perhaps it’s best to do both.

Scott:  What do you mean?

Poe:  When you’re writing, you write only for you.  You shut out all the other voices.  But when you’re trying to get better, when you’re trying to learn, you have to be willing to open your mind.  That means you might get stung.  The key, of course, is to be able to shake off criticism without ignoring it completely.  It’s a balancing act.

Scott:  I agree . . . Hey, since good old J.D. is your pal, do you know if there really are dozens of manuscripts locked away?

Poe:  You’ll know soon enough.

Scott:  Hey now!  How about some gratitude?  I do put a roof over your head.

Poe:  Put an Internet connection in here and you’ll see some gratitude.

Me:  One of the things that strikes me about the Internet is how readily some people share aspects of their lives they wouldn’t dare share with the stranger sitting next to them on the bus. 

Poe:  You ride the bus?

Me:  Don’t change the subject.  Look, I think every writer who wants to be read must have certain exhibitionist tendencies.  I’m not talking about flashing private parts in front of strangers — I’m talking about “the act or practice of behaving so as to attract attention to oneself,” as my dictionary defines it.  Otherwise, why send out your work at all?  

Poe:  Well, some writers may not care about the attention.  Maybe they just want to get paid.  

Me:  Okay, if that’s true, then why publish under your own name?  You could send everything out under a pseudonym and avoid the spotlight entirely. 

Poe:  Some writers do. 

Me:  Yes, but most don’t.  Most writers — or musicians, or artists, or marionette performers, whatever — seek some level of attention and accolade for their work.  They’re saying, “Hey, world, look at what I did here!”    

Poe:  All right.  I’ll accept that.  What’s your point? 

Me:  I’m not sure I have one.  I’m just expressing some concerns.  The Internet has made it incredibly easy to not only share your work with a wider audience, but to share every aspect of your personal life with the wider world as well — whether it’s who you’re dating or what you had for breakfast.  I think every writer/artist/performer has to find their own comfort level with that, but the thing I struggle with the most is that person’s family.  Are these people on board with their photos/names/intimate details of their lives being made public? 

Poe:  I suppose that’s up to the family to decide. 

Me:  But what about children?  When I see someone putting photos of their children online — I’m not talking about Facebook, or a closed social network, but a public Web page that anyone in the world can see — I wonder if it’s appropriate.  Even if they give their consent, is it right?  Maybe they should be shielded from the public eye until they reach adulthood, and then they can decide for themselves if they want to tell the world what they had for breakfast each morning.  

Poe:  So where do you come down on this? 

Me:  Well, I’m a writer.  Of course I’m at least part-exhibitionist.  But I’m of the belief that my family is off-limits except in the most general sense.  They didn’t sign up for to be supporting actors in my writing life.  So you won’t see me posting photos of my kids on here.  Or hardly ever even mentioning their names.  I can’t help but talk about them at least in general, because it’s my life too, but they deserve to decide for themselves how public they want to be with their lives.  Here’s the problem, though:  You no longer have full control.  Other people will take photos of you or your family and post them online without your consent.  It’s only going to get worse, too.  In this era of YouTube, social media, and reality television, good luck trying to control your level of privacy. 

Poe:  You’re not exactly sounding a hopeful note. 

Me:  I guess it depends on how much you value your privacy. 

—-

I’ve got an Edgar Allan Poe action figure in my writing office at home, complete with a miniature raven on his shoulder.  After a while, I started talking to him, sharing my concerns about writing, family, and life in general.  One day, amazingly, he started talking back.