Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Netterdämmerung

The Muse called the other day - and asked (as he is supposed to do) if I was writing.

"Well, I was sick all last week..." and threw in a few rancid details.
Silence.
"Oh, and I've been looking for work."

He was having none of that, didn't even glance at the diversionary bon-bons.

"So...  Are? You? Writing?"
"Yes," I lied.   Well, maybe not lied-lied, but I did leave out the beginning of the sentence:
"If by 'writing' you mean sitting at the computer, fiddling with a blank Word document till I need to eat, pee, stretch or check my Facebook page, then Yes."

§§§

With that not-quite-truth staining the back of my tongue, over the last few days I executed  a hard shut-down from the 'Net -- just to see if I could compose anything without  immediately fact-checking, jingling the grammar gods or pestering my erstwhile agent.   Don't get me wrong,  this is not the beginning of some soliloquy about how Noble Our Life Without teh Webbin'.  I <3 me the Interwebs, still believe in that Ever-ever-land where the \/\/\/ opens humanity to unprecedented levels of creativity and connection, and DarqueNet doesn't sell pharmaceutical-grade opiates  to high-school seniors.

(cough)

But I digress.   After surviving nearly a week of Netlessness, I have decided to disconnect until the end of an *actual* day of writing.   Bruce Sterling once told me that he never permitted Net access in his writing space - and even in that antedeluvian year (I think it was 1999) such an idea seemed impossibly ascetic.   But it has been 11 days since I last opened the file on HAVOC (yes, yes - I was ((actually, still am)) sick; and yes, I was also applying for jobbyjobs).  Time to invoke Martial Law, find my Inner Leni and put her in charge of the Reword/Reward circuit.   ¡Achtung, Mammies!