BLOG

Addiction Weary: I’m an addict. I am addicted to 24/7 digital accessibility. In the good old days, the first thing that I used to do in the morning was to read the newspaper and have a cup of tea. The last thing I did before bed was to read a few chapters in a book. Now I am addicted to checking email, texts, Instagram and the dreaded energy suck, Facebook. Even when I don’t post on social media, I feel like a troll, looking into so many lives– a voyeuristic view of other hum

My writing journey is pretty inspirational, at least to me. For the past four years, I have been doing what musicians call “woodshedding,” the process of locking yourself in the woodshed and practicing until you can’t stand yourself anymore. That’s what I think it takes to become a good writer, and in my case a good novelist. I probably threw away more than half the words I wrote last year. So, is this what people mean by inspiring? Or is it possibly the definition of crazy?

Julia’s family was not the first in Elbert to get a telephone, but when they did she was amazed and even proud. It was, for her, a utility– a functional thing that connected her to important news about the family or community. You used it in an emergency. It would have been foolish and wasteful to see the device as something to enhance her social life. There was little time on a farm for such frivolity, and communities were built around the help they gave to one another and n