I’m thinking a lot about writing lately. I also spend a lot of my time working on technology. There’s actually a tension there. It might not be obvious, but it’s there. Writing is about slowing down, savoring the language. Every. Single. Word. Technology is about speeding things up, about doing more with less. The oft talked about, and (depending on your perspective) dreaded: productivity.
I was out walking earlier this week, here in Atlanta, maybe headed into work, maybe out for exercise. I was on this part of a street near my home where the trees dotted both sides of the road as it stretched out toward the horizon. High-rise apartments and corporate offices stood off in the distance, reaching into the clear, blue sky. People were walking by, listening to music on their iPhones. The AirPods were the give away. A lone Uber delivery robot was creeping up the sidewalk across from me, and I thought, “Wow, I’m living in the present and the future, all at the same time.”
That’s writing and technology. One takes us into the future, the other makes us present. The world is a little slanted toward technology at this point, and it shows. We're starting to wear under the weight of that singularity. There's a work around, though. It's being present and writing about it.
For a long time, I’ve let the ideal of the perfect writer’s life keep me from writing. Waiting on inspiration, a quiet room, or the perfect lighting. It has never worked out like that, which means I never find time to write.
I’ve stopped doing that. I’m just writing whenever now, wherever I can. In paper notebooks when I have 15 minutes at lunch. With a stylus on my Kindle while the TV plays in the background. I wrote this post in a notes app on my phone while lying in bed.
Part of what I'm interested in exploring as I go to grad school at SCAD is writing on the web. Not just writing on the web – though I am interested in how creative writing on the web can itself be an object of art – but also, I'm interested in writing on the web as compared to traditional publishing. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
I’m not sure if publishing is a good word here, but what I mean is writing in books, magazines, news papers, or generally anything of a print nature. Despite the very digital world we live in, traditional print media remains and is going strong. I think this is great, but obviously, writing on the web, in ebooks, and in other forms of digital media proliferates. There's literally writing every where we look. Why hasn't reading on the web or in ebook format overtaken physical books at this point in our culture?
I first started thinking about this several years ago when my kids were younger. They've grown up on the Internet, and yet, they still prefer reading physical books to ebooks. It's not as strange to me now that I'm used to it. Also, it's a well understood thing – ebooks are a nice compliment to the traditional publishing business. Readers and non-readers alike prefer physical books. I mean, if I'm being honest, I like physical books better myself, which also seems like it should be out of character for me. I've built my life and career on the web. I'm a gadget guy too. I've had just about every iPad or Kindle there has been. Still, I prefer a book in hand to an ebook.
Why is this?
Beyond the obvious benefits that come to mind with physical books – they're cheaper, safer to carry with you, easier to flip between pages, etc. – there is something "real" about them compared to ebooks. There's an actual weight to the object in your hand or in your backpack. Even before you've read a word, you know what you're in for when holding a book in your hand. The same can't be said of a book on your phone or an e-reader. Writing on the web just doesn't have the same weight.
This makes sense from a software point of view too. Digital work is inherently ephemeral. Web sites are here today, gone tomorrow. Digital bits are easy to copy, which scared writers initially, but digital bits are also easy to delete. When something can be so easily created and then deleted, what does that mean for the content itself?
There's a follow-on to this that is obvious now that we've been living in the internet age for a few decades. The web and digital content leads to an inherent lack of authority. The web doesn't have the physical weight or the the authorial weight in quite the same way physical books do.
I can think of a few counter examples of web content that has managed to rise above and throw its weight around.
The New York Times has done a great job of reinventing itself for the web. In the comics world, Lore Olympus has all but defined the webtoons genre of comics but has also gone on to sell books in traditional book stores. If you want an example of a book that's better online than in print, check out the book Making Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words from the Steve Jobs Archive. The Internet Archive has also done a great job of preserving all that has happened on the web.
There are some patterns emerging here – a care for the craft, a focus on the work as an object of art. Preservation, making something that lasts. Putting the work in as many hands across as many formats as possible. That seems like the way forward for us.
Maybe this approach isn't all that different from what artists have done at other times in our history. Make art. That's it. The way to lend more weight to writing on the web is to focus on making great art, making something meaningful and lasting, even as everything else on the web comes and goes.
