Nothing to write about

Nihil est, inquis, quod scribam. At hoc ipsum scribe, nihil esse quod scribas...
You say you have nothing to write about. Well, you can at least write about having nothing to write about...
---Pliny the Younger


There's a reason this blog has gone largely dark over the last month or two. I will tell you of that reason when I can, and I will tell you here, and I hope you will understand when I do.

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Actually, there are several reasons I'm not writing as much as I used to, aside from the overarching one I'd rather not discuss at the moment. One of my founts of blogspiration has run dry. The contract I signed when I got my new job last September prohibits me from saying anything negative about it on any social media platform. And so I'm afraid to even say anything positive lest it be misconstrued.

There's also this sneaking sense that whatever I set out to say, I've said it all before. Several times, actually: I've been writing here since May of '04 and in that nearly eight years I've covered everything of importance to me more than once. If you would know me, read the Breadbin from start to finish. I'm pretty much fully digitized at this point.

And then--well, life is boring right now. Boring is actually my preferred state, as you would know after even a cursory read of the foregoing blog entries...but dull living makes for even duller reading.

Fourth on the list is the Internet itself. You should know, Dear Readers, that I am writing again, if sporadically, outside this blog. It's a project that, like anything I do, will get done when it gets done...if I set a deadline for myself I will miss it. I've got some six thousand words invested with more mulling around in my brain as I write these words...but there's a problem.

Robert J. Sawyer, one of my favourite science fiction authors, posted something to his Facebook feed a couple of weeks ago to the effect that "great writing is three percent talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet." Truer words are rarely pixellated. The Internet is a time and attention vacuum the likes of which I could never have imagined before I was ensnared in it. I never bothered much with the previous time and attention sink -- television -- in part because it's so passive, and in part because much of what's on it is so puerile. But the Internet is many times more powerful, at least to me. Reading even great novels offline is a much harder slog than it should be, now; whatever I'm doing in the house, I feel a magnetic pull towards the computer. The only time that has ever completely gone away was at Disney World. (I have to tell you, one of the underlying joys in that Happiest Place On Earth, again for me, was the complete absence of any desire to find some other virtual world and live in it for a while. I was thus flabbergasted to discover that there are thousands upon thousands of people screaming for Wi-Fi in their Disney Resorts, which I'm told has now been provided. Depressing, that is.)

To get any solid writing done--for hours at a time, I mean--it seems I need a computer completely disconnected from the Internet, preferably in a different room. Except that wouldn't work because I'd be forever convincing myself I needed to do some critical piece of research that would inexplicably involve an hour on Reddit and another hour on Facebook.

There's an author by the name of Catherynne Valente I discovered when she guest-started over at Charlie Stross's place. She writes the way I imagine my great-grandmother used to spin yarn, in endless skeins of rich and colourful thought and insight. And she's created and realized something in her household that I'd like to try in mine. She calls it "Abbey Night"--a weekly turning back of the clock to the 1800s. Technology goes away. What's left is human, and up to you.  She says it grounds her and provides her with many cherished memories. I don't doubt that one bit. Really, for all the information we suck up, how often does the Internet hit us with something truly memorable? I can count those occasions on the fingers of one thumb.

In fact, I'm going to run this by the wife and let you know how it turns out.

Meantime, I hope all is well out there in your worlds. I will be back. Trust me.