Transformation, change, what is old, what is new, where we’ve come from and where we are going…sometimes we feel we are just standing still. I am married to an engineer, and she is married to an artist. I entertain and I am a novelist. We discuss what all this new technology means. Some discussions are about the technology and some of our discussions are about the content. Both discussions are about the nature of change. What do I mean by that? I mean that much of what we are now experiencing is already no longer relevant, no longer matters. One structure we thought existed is supplanted, replaced, or made obsolete by the emerging structure. I attended the San Francisco Writers Conference the last three days. The old order has watched while the new digital structure continues to unfold.
For a street performer it means less than it does to an author of novels. Distribution of a street act remains the same. Stand on corner. Gather an audience, do a show, pass the hat, and another turn of the wheel of life has been made. For an author the mechanics of distribution have been changing and remain in a state of rapid, revolutionary change. Writing evolves at the level of human time frames. Technology moves at another speed. The slow and careful composition of a novel has something in common with a street performer. This digital revolution, this new technology is frantic, fast-paced, breathtaking, and has created not just amazing uncertainty, but amazing opportunity. The challenges are many… as always the most important part is to finds way to use it and not let it use you… I want to think at my own rate of thought, I want to create at my own pace, and enjoy technologies convenience not its tyranny.
