[Rainbow Retro] The wizard, revealed!

"The Man in Question"
by William Wallace Denslow

I often don’t recognize how much I need the Internet as a writer until I can’t get online for periods of time. Then, it feels rather like I’m the Wizard of Oz, hiding behind the curtain, pushing my buttons and pulling my levers when, gasp! and ta-da!, the curtain falls away, revealing my faults and the fact that I’m not only ordinary but downright powerless without the facade of technology at my beck and call.


Recently, writing cohorts of mine have lamented the frequent power outages brought on by winter storms. And even with generators, they find they still can’t pick up their wi-fi signal, either. That’s frustrating. I’ve had the experience myself while on a raging deadline and now know of some good places to pick up free wi-fi for just the price of a cup of coffee (or even for free, since I belong to a local country club…heck, I’m already paying for my seat, may as well use it!). You gotta do what you gotta do.

Others decry the challenges of keeping up with writing while traveling, either for work or vacation, especially those who must write through those periods because they’re covering live events that can’t be pre-written. I can’t stand the thought of using my mobile PDA for such a task. All those little bitty buttons for 500-1000 words of BlahBlahBlah? Fuggetabottit.

And then there are the writers who work at other occupations to make a living, or who parent, and can’t always be plugged into the web. The Saturday trip to the coffeehouse is a fine thing, but it never lasts long enough, no sir.

I know, I can hear some of you now, wondering: what does the ‘net have to do with writing? Can’t I just write without it?

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(Note: This blog post first appeared at Writer's Rainbow on January 13, 2009)