Made For This Age

I just went to great effort to make a full pot of coffee and it’s horrible. Why is it that some days are good coffee-making days and some days just plain aren’t? Depleted of all my early morning energy, I promptly snagged a 16 ounce diet coke. Yesterday carrot juice, today diet coke. I am a picture of multi-faceted health, my friends.

Ah, where to begin? Since it is Saturday, I have decided I’m fairly due the opportunity to ramble in a disorganized fashion. I’ve noticed that weekend traffic drops tremendously in blogland, just as it does with emails. Normal people (ahem) are probably outside enjoying the balmy late spring weather, and in winter they’re probably off seeing movies or playing sports of shopping. I think I’m one of the only people I personally know who stays well tuned into the Net on many weekends. Someone this week, and I’m sorry I don’t recall who it was, posted on their blog about their gratitude for living in the age of the Net. I’m right there with you. (And before anyone decides my memory is impaired, please take note of the tremendous volume of details that I must keep track of in my daily life. I have repeatedly wowed authors by recalling vivid specifics of their submissions, even many years later. I am not slipping—I promise!) Ahem. Back to the Net revelry.

I was made for the Internet age. It was no accident, for instance, that I launched our agency in 1996, the year that the Net suddenly reached its massive tipping point. A few years earlier, and the space between Atlanta and New York would have been a much broader gulf. These days, editors and I email all day long, making deals, sending submissions, looking at contracts. It’s endless. I’m also Agency Internet Gal with my clients (just ask any of the fine ladies who visit this blog—smooch, love you guys.) It is the single most effective way to keep regular contact with my clients. Nobody has to wait in a phone queue. I can actually send emails while on the phone by the way—done it. Plenty of times. But I can’t talk to two people at the same time. I can, however, have multiple emails in play.

The research factor is priceless to me. In my earlier days of committed writing (visualize black screen and white-lettered crawl: Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away….)I used to go to the Georgia State Library in downtown Atlanta and actually sort through microfiche and the like. Good grief. You could spend a whole day and come away with almost nothing. Now if I decide I want to just look up the phrase “global awareness” or a toy with time travel theory or download Baker Street because my hero loves it, I’m only one second away. In fact, I’d argue that the Net is almost a form of time travel, i.e. the immediacy of information dissolves traditional and long-held boundaries that once limited our human possibility. Just a thought.

And it brings me to The Matrix (and I did promise I’d be self-indulgent here, no?) I caught part of one of my all-time favorite shows last night, Six Feet Under. This series has some of the most brilliant writing I’ve ever encountered on television. If you’ve never watched it, I would totally encourage you to order season one and season two, which were amazing. But we’ll save SFU for another day except this. I absolutely snorted out loud watching it last night; Nate, a new dad, is trying to find someone—anyone—to watch his baby. His little sister Claire tells him in a huff, “This isn’t The Matrix, Nate. Those of us without babies are real.” What a howler! I always prayed I wouldn’t be one of those self-absorbed new moms, the kind who acted like anyone without a baby just didn’t know the meaning of life or obligation.

Ah, and here’s the thing of it with this mini-ramble. I’ve talked and talked and never even come to the idea I started with for this post. I’ve discovered that I often have no idea what I’m going to write here until it begins to come together. It’s a very refreshing format, isn’t it? It draws on a different part of our novelist brains, and probably is a good exercise in creatively unwinding.

So, since I never got to dreams and the power of the subconscious, I shall return with that, most likely tomorrow. I do thank you for listening and reading, my friends.
Happy Weekending!
Deidre