The Connected Author ~ Writing and The Internet

Yesterday I was out of the loop and I’m just barely back in.

My ISP failed and when I finally got back on line my best friend wished me a Net-Happy Day :-)

While I was disconnected, I was able to learn some stark truths:

Life is not the same for this writer when he can’t use the Internet.

Connection at a distance is a huge part of my writing life.

Not just literary research for my next book but all my current promotion activities for the novel I published last year are dependent on digital connection.

Sure, if the Internet itself were to disappear, I would still write but let’s just say I prefer this ability to shatter space and time…

Using the Top Tags in the side-bar by clicking on Second Life and Book Island will tune you in to where I spend over 40 hours a week engaged in events crucial to my philosophy of book promotion—Making Friends.

And, it should be noted, I’m not talking about the “friends” most folks have on Facebook or other social networks.

My friends are really interested in things I’m interested in.

Some of my friends and I share our writing, with deep discussions.

My friends are not all necessarily my readers but they just might be co-promoters of my work since, if I’m a good friend, my friends may introduce me to their friends…

I know, this is exactly what folks do off the Internet when they want to spread ideas, but there are differences.

If I went outside my apartment and made more friends, I could do many of the activities I do on Book Island, but…

I doubt I could do them with people from 10 other countries and I doubt I could do them in multiple venues with equal ease—library, coffee shop, retreat, houseboat, beach, and more.

Folks who haven’t inhabited a virtual world rarely understand how much value and feeling can be shared.

But, even if you never intend to visit Second Life or Book Island, if you’ve ever read a good story, you’ve been in a virtual world………