I had my internet connection sabotaged on Monday and have since found it to be the greatest inconvenience I've had for a while. I say this because it has affected my ability to write more than I thought it would. I don't spend all my time surfing my broadband, procrastinating when I should be writing, but it is always nice to have it there at my finger tips should I want to reference something inbetween my creative sessions.
I can cope without the internet reasonably well on most occasions. When I moved house two months ago I accepted I wouldn't have broadband for at least two weeks and I was perfectly okay with that. No one could help the situation and that was fine. But Monday's situation was completely different. We had an engineer out to fix a minor problem with our phone and I stress it was only a minor fault. The engineer fixed it in no time at all and everything seemed hunkydory or so I thought. That was until I switched on the computer and found no connection what so ever. Nothing with my laptop, either. I was cross when I realised what had happened but not so furious as I am now because no matter what anyone does - nothing will fix it and it seems I'll be in a broadbandless situation for ever more!
I accept somethings cannot be helped but I have a strong feeling this situation wouldn't have arisen if the engineer had known what he was doing in the first place. My usual routine consists of spending a portion of my morning writing, then going online to do some research or marketing, or whatever I feel like doing, then back to writing in the afternoon. Now with no internet connection, I am struggling to fight my irascible mood on who I would like to hit the most, to actually concentrate on writing anything at all. Now if I want to use the internet I have to walk forty minutes each way to my Mum's house - time spent walking when I could be working on something else more important.
I also like to have breaks inbetween going online and I have found that I absolutely cannot stand having to spend a chunk of time solely for internet purposes. I find myself wasting time because I have to battle with my concentration and I am wasting time inbetween sessions when I love to work all day.
Now it's time for you to moan... Has something happened in your writing life recently that has left you as annoyed as I am?
I feel your pain. I recently started a new story and was rolling right along, all the way to the third chapter. I took my time, developed a great outling, had all my characters in my head, but still stalled. After nearly two weeks of whining and throwing little tantrums, it finally dawned on me that I had not fully developed the character I was trying to introduce in chapter three. I had an epiphany last night and hurriedly put together all my notes for this character's background and, thus, motivation. I'm writing about it at my website today.
ReplyDeleteWe just had the engineer out upgrading our broadband to the fastest we can get and he also replaced out old modem with a top-of-the-range hub. Internet connectivity is important to both my wife and I. The irony is we’re both from a generation where the was no Internet to go down. I wrote my first novel on a computer, yes, but all my research was done in the local library. I enjoy the power of the Internet but it does come at a price. I would miss it if it went away but I think I would cope better that a lot of younger writers who view the Internet not simply as a tool but as a way of life. I find that side of it intrusive and although it’s a necessary evil if I want to get read I seriously wonder if the handful of readers I pick up along the way are worth the huge amount of effort involved. So that’s my moan for the day.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point Jim. The internet has only just recently come about but a lot of people can't live without it. My Dad used to love the library for research purposes but then he moaned that he couldn't find a decent book as the library was full of internet boffins all surfing online.
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