So today I have laryngitis. And wow-- I said that (wrote it) like I planned on having laryngitis-- which of course I didn't. But it's been a good thing. I've closed my eyes for most of the day and listened. Listening's important for writers. And when I see (not today, of course) people walking around with their heads down looking at tiny screens, I wonder how much they hear. Or do they tune everything out except whatever noisy indicator signals to them that they have to read or watch something on that tiny screen? They're missing a lot. But then again, most of them aren't writers though they text a thousand times a day, tweet hundreds of 140 characters a day, post crucial info on Facebook fifty times per day, and possibly blog several times a week. But that stuff isn't writing. It's texting, tweeting, posting, and blogging. And most of it ignores listening. What did I hear today? Everything.
Update: So Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad) is telling a story on Twitter (@NYerfiction) starting today for ten days. So maybe tweeting is writing. The New Yorker calls it-- amazingly-- Twitter fiction. So I'm wrong once again. Anything is considered writing, and I mean fiction writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment