Monday, February 1, 2010

Writers Needs a "Platform" to Display Their Work

I have a Facebook page now for Bare Ruined Choirs.

Why don't you become a fan? Bare Ruined Choirs, poetry by Tom Kepler.

The smart technocrats now say that a "platform" or online presence is essential for anyone to pursue art, business, politics, relationships, and anything other than being a hermit.

It's making the hermit's life--or, rather, the hobbit's life--more and more appealing. I envy the hobbit: garden and glen, mixing in an occasional tea party.

It's not that I don't like people. I find that for the last six months I have spent just as much time as a social networker and publisher as I have as a writer.

I recently found some good advice on a blog posting, though: don't connect to the internet. Just turn the computer on, go to your writing file--your novel or poem or story--and write. If you want to research a word, don't go online--go to the old-fashioned Webster, the one with paper. For the younger readers: a dictionary.

Write. Don't be distracted. Don't be lured by the sirens of Facebook, those sweet singing harpies that lure you to the rocks of distraction and slackerism. Yes, that's right, slackerism. It's time to break out the big guns.

I now have several blog posts written prior to this one. I now feel better about the angle I'm taking on the revision of my novel Dragons of Blood and Fire.

My muse is a dragon, that most spiritual of magical beings. Let me breathe the fire of creation. Let me feel inspiration raining down. Let me drink the nectar of life and eat ambrosia, the food of the gods.

Let me create rather than hobnobbing with writers at the water cooler.

See ya later...my fingers feel twitchy for the reins. My dragon awaits.

What do you do to make sure you are composing at the computer rather than socializing? Leave your comment below.

Copyright 2010 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

1 comment:

  1. I write on my iPhone while at the beach. The iPhone will only run one application at a time - no multitasking - therefore when I'm writing, that's the only thing I'm able to do at that moment. No social network running in another window!

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