When I worked, as a student, in a public library that carried several different newspapers (one of my jobs was placing newspapers on those sticks that hung on racks), I quickly got the idea that different newspapers had different slants, just as my journalism teachers had told me. But back then those slants were less obvious.

The news today isn’t what I learned it should be in junior high and high school journalism. I learned in those classes (the most recent in the early 1970s) that journalism was a format that could inform and educate, or misinform and manipulate. But, I was told, the most ethical journalists and news sources attempted to be more balanced and factual. More and more today, I think we’re simply manipulated by the news. It’s less about the facts, and more about opinion, speculation, or passing judgment. Every news source seems to have its bias, whether toward liberal or conservative politics, toward or against religion, science, environmental concerns, current business and economic influences, and so forth. It resembles what I learned was yellow journalism or propaganda, back in school. I’ve also noticed, as I look back, that nearly all my life even the most factual news has been about carefully selected facts. There was always something left out. And it’s what people don’t say that often carries the kernel of truth.

For instance, I learned recently that modern news sources sometimes almost completely ignore a candidate in their presidential election coverage. (Look up Larry Agran, who ran in the Democratic primaries in 1992 to learn just how effectively the news media can marginalize a candidate.) In what we consider a democracy, we depend perhaps too much on news coverage to provide us balanced information to draw on when we vote. In our desire for a convenient source of information, we fail to realize news coverage can be lax, and even manipulative.

I’m not going to criticize any particular news source here, though I could mention several, probably some that you and I both attempt to learn from or rely on for facts. There are few that seem to provide objective news anymore. The other night I watched what appeared to be in-depth coverage of a recent minor political intrigue, in which a journalist used judgmental terms to describe what had occurred. I thought the events and facts could stand for themselves, with the viewer left to judge, if enough facts were given. Instead the reporter made judgments for us.

What I take issue with the most is something I see in nearly every news source I’m familiar with: News reporting with strong emotional hooks that get people worked up, but barely scratch the surface of fact. This kind of reporting doesn’t lead us to a resolution or even a path toward solutions — which could be gained simply by providing more information in a balanced, responsible way, about news that really matters, then letting the viewer or reader make up his own mind. Even when we’re presented with straight news rather than opinion, even when journalists don’t judge or speculate about the background or outcome of an event, even when they’re not reporting on Paris Hilton’s or Britney Spear’s latest exploits instead of a newsworthy event — even then, these emotional hooks leave me with little wonder that many people today are too stressed by the “news” to think straight or take charge of their own lives, let alone vote or spend intelligently and responsibly.

Is anyone else increasingly dissatisfied with news coverage? Is it any wonder newspapers are folding, or that with more television channels than ever, there’s less news worth watching? Does anyone else think the news anchors sometimes seem less informed than we who bother to read rather than just rely on their reports? Do you think that TV news networks are less involved with reporting the facts, and more involved with increasing our culture’s adrenaline addiction and steering popular opinion in particular directions?

The only thing that keeps me a bit more interested in the news today than when I was younger is the Internet. When I see superficial or emotionally involving coverage by the media on something that interests me, I can read several more perspectives on it, if I do some judicious research of my own. One needs to exercise skepticism when reading on the Internet. Even edu sites are sometimes suspect sources these days. But once I locate a few different and disparate sources of a particular story, it’s easier to find the thread of truth in the news than when I depend on a single newspaper or TV source for coverage. Some news that’s important to me is missed entirely by mass media, or the media is slower to respond to it.

But researching the news on the Internet takes time, more time than I usually have, and more time than many people are willing or able to put in. That leaves us with the more convenient “professional” news sources, which I find more suspect and less responsible than ever.

All that panic because I was too dumb to know my backup program stored an archive of deleted files, and because I had allowed too much other garbage to backlog on my hard drive. (The glitch occurred when that particular hard drive filled up.)

I could sit here and ask why me, or rather ask why I do this to myself, but I’m too busy getting back to normal and on with work. Still, it seems that I go through this sort of panic on a regular basis. It happened two years ago when my old laptop gave out and I lost work that I hadn’t yet backed up. This time it resulted from the backup process itself.

Once I’m finished with this book and it’s off getting a look by some agents, I plan to spend a few weeks getting my life in better order, including both paper and digital files, to prevent future panic episodes.

But one thing I noticed during all of this was that I don’t tend to print out what I’ve written as often as I used to. In spite of what might’ve been lost, overall I consider that a good thing, a good sign that I’m making my personal transition from paper to a digital world.

I admit to some affection for the paper world. It’s what I grew up with, and where I found my love of books and the written word. There is still something sensual to me about the feeling of pen and paper or a book in my hands. I like the shape of the book, the weight of it, the toothy or smooth texture of paper, even the smell of ink, paper, and binding materials. I still recall with nostalgia the particular smell of the book I was handed in third or fourth grade when we studied the culture and geography of Japan. Ever since, I’ve looked for similar qualities each time I open a new book. All these things make letting go of the paper world a clingy process.

At the same time, I love trees. Because of that, I’ve always been troubled that my chosen form of expression — writing — has a history of felling so many trees. So when I went through my computer files and some paper files over the past few days, I was pleased to realize that I recently have less tendency to print as I write. I used to feel a need to print out what I’d written more frequently, to edit or proofread on paper rather than onscreen, or just to get a sense of what the printed story would look like.

Maybe it’s so many years of writing on a computer that’s changed this. Maybe it’s the laptop’s portability and reduced glare being easier on my eyes. Maybe it’s no longer having a job that requires me to stare at a screen all day and then do the same all my evenings and weekends for my fiction writing.

Maybe it’s blogging. The immediacy of blogging tends to encourage me to edit onscreen. My blog is even set up now so I can view what I write in two or three different fonts before I post it, which I think aids the onscreen editing and proofreading process.

Maybe it’s a combination of all those factors. It’s interesting to note that more publishing venues have opened up to electronic submissions just since the CRT monitor has begun to vanish. Hopefully the less glaring monitors that are replacing them will be much easier on all our eyes, and continue to save more trees.

I still write a good half of my personal journal pages by hand, and I still use handwriting to jump-start or unblock my writing process. This blog post is in fact a segue from my morning pages. But my journal pages don’t get reproduced, except by typing them into a digital format, and they’re unlikely ever to be published in book form. The paper is eventually recycled if they do become digital, so I’m not as concerned about my journal pages killing trees. At least that’s what I like to tell myself.

Now if we can get the ebook technology to the point where fewer paper books have to be printed, at least for popular fiction, then we’ll have made real progress in taking publishing from deforestation for profit to a more pure form of edification, expression, and entertainment. Of course there will always be uses for paper. I can’t think of a better way to keep certain legal documents or accounting records, right now, though that’s not a world I work or have much expertise in. There are also some types of books that just work better, for now, on paper. One that comes to mind is the coffee table variety, with color plates of artwork or photography. But the less trees cut down for paper and books, the better.

Even if what this Guardian Unlimited article says is true, that planting more trees in temperate latitudes won’t help assuage global warming, it also states that destroying more trees isn’t the answer, that the greater need, and indeed our motivation for attempting to slow global warming, is to preserve ecosystems, including but certainly not limited to our own.

Perhaps my panic over my files had some value. It got me not only to change what I file away on my computer and how I back it up, but also to take a hard look at how I use paper, to keep heading along the road I’ve started down, of conserving wherever it’s reasonable, and wherever I can.

It’s been an uphill battle, two steps forward, one step back. Hopefully my resident computer medicine man will soon complete his magical mumbo jumbo, drive out the evil computer spirit thingies, and I’ll be a force to be reckoned with on the Internet. Since I never was before, that’ll be a feat of magic for sure.

Fortunately this doesn’t effect my writing computer, which I keep disconnected and safely backed up.

But I miss you!

I also miss being able to do a quick search whenever my brain hiccups out a question. I’ve become so used to having the world at my fingertips, this is a little like losing the use of a limb—or a major appliance.

Readers and fellow bloggers, thank you for your patience and stay tuned.

I’m not sure what else I get done on all the days that I don’t blog, as opposed to days that I do. My day sometimes just speeds past and before I know it it’s over and I’m left attempting to assess where it went. That happens more during summer than in other seasons. My brain and sense of time become sluggish or warped when it’s warm out. I’m convinced, too, that blogging requires a different part of my brain than I’m accustomed to using. My thoughts can stay light or go deep, and I’m comfortable in both places, but expressing myself in a story or in hard facts, or even a personal journal (where I don’t even need to worry whether I understand, let alone whether anyone else does) turns out to be much different than the kind of writing I do here, clarifying my thoughts and ideas, or reviewing life events. Nevertheless, regular blogging is a good exercise. It’s like strengthening a muscle you rarely use, such as the one that bends your pinky when holding a teacup, or the one that lifts one eyebrow. It’s not necessary, but it’s a nice, sometimes elegant, ability to have. Besides, blogging helps me feel in touch during periods of writing isolation or silence.

Speaking of silence, Streams of Silence, by Bruce at Wordswimmer, takes a profound look at the silences we all face, particularly writers. An appropriate topic for me to ponder today.

Happy World Blog Day!

We heard rumbles of thunder yesterday, but no rain. Thunderstorms look even more likely today, but at least it’s cooler. (The thermometer says so, though humidity makes me feel otherwise.)

Stay cool.

I started my website back in 2000, when Shadows Fall was first published, for the same reason most writers do, to promote my work. Four years later I started this blog as a way to provide up-to-date content on my website and let visitors know what I was working on—basically as a way to keep the website from stagnating when too much time passed between novels. Little did I know at the time that the blog would engage so much of my attention.

The immediacy of this format holds a certain attraction. Type, click a button, and what you’ve written is published. But that has its drawbacks. As easy as email, which carries its own risks, a blog can suck you out into public view in a way that’s scary and in some ways deceiving. It’s easy to forget you’re putting yourself “out there” to the degree we do online. After all, I’m seated here alone at my home computer as I type this into a little window on my screen. It doesn’t feel public at all, at the time I write.

I tend to be more reticent when I’m face to face with people. As a private person—in fact an introvert—I find the public aspect of blogging conflicts with those personal, internal privacy constraints. The degree of narcisim that comes into play in me when I engage in this blog or others startles me, especially after the fact, if I go back and read what I’ve said. I’ve always kept a journal, so I grew accustomed, years ago, to exploring and sorting out my thoughts by writing them down. But that used to be strictly private. Anything that might be published went through heavy editing and self-censoring. It had time to simmer, to boil down, before it left my hands and confronted other readers. Even then, I sometimes felt overexposed when submitting work. I’ve come to realize this mental exploration through words can come across in blogging and commenting as total self-absorption. At least that’s how I see it. I find myself talking about me, me, me, in a way I rarely do in real life, and then only with a select few people. I’m not sure I like doing this online. It’s a little too much of me, if you ask me.

Maybe blogging and commenting is too easy, too instant, too uninhibited—and far too permanent once it’s out there. Effective, judicious communication requires more time, more thought, more self-editing than this. I feel a need to take a step back. I’m not this spontaneous a person.

Then again, maybe getting me out of my native reticence is a good thing. The business end of writing requires that one put oneself out in the world in a way that’s uncomfortable to many of us who tend to be introverts. Writing is the form of communication we’re most comfortable with, so blog as conversation is a handy tool for us to use.

There’s a teaching attributed sometimes to Sufism, and other times to Socrates as the Triple Filter Test. It states that one shouldn’t speak until one’s words have passed through three gates or filters: truth, necessity, and kindness. Still, the questions linger in my mind, especially recently. So much of the rest of my life draws me, calls to me. I find I’m leaving the blog sit for long periods of time. I’m building dreams in the physical world that I want to pour my energy and time into.

Is all this blogging I do really necessary? Does it serve a purpose—the right purpose? If it’s all just so much babble about me or my life or my opinions, why do it at all? And what about my comments elsewhere? I’m a passionate, opinionated person. I’m an impulsive, temperamental commenter. I flare up over news or politics. I say things on the spur of the moment that I may later regret, because I didn’t think things through, or I wrote out of context to the original post, or I reacted and blurted out my first thought rather than responding from my core. Maybe I erred, or changed my mind. I’m not afraid to admit when I do that, but a comment made on a blog I visit may be around for a long time, while I may forget where it was. I have gone back and edited my posts on my blog at times, sometimes deleted them altogether. But, just as with emails, when we don’t know who they may be forwarded to, we lose control of comments.

Now this is not to say I intend to give up blogging—or commenting. I don’t. But recently I want to give all this more thought, take it a little slower. Is my attitude about this suddenly too furtive, too cautious? Am I dithering?

Sometimes I wonder if the next step beyond blogging is for the human race to become more telepathic. Here in the blogosphere we sometimes share our thoughts almost as soon as we think them. They’re not just first draft writing, sometimes they’re first draft thoughts. They spring newborn onto the screen, brain to fingers to blogosphere. Telepathy sometimes seems like the next logical step. If we need to be concerned with those three gates or filters when speaking and writing, perhaps blogging will teach us to engage them when thinking as well, to govern our thoughts, preparing us to wise up before we jump that communicative gap. Or is it possible that our thoughts already carry far more power—or distance—than we realize? Who knows?

So I wonder, why do other people blog, and how do you feel about it?
Have your reasons for doing it changed since you began?
Have you written posts or comments you regretted?
Does blogging accomplish a purpose for you? If so, what?

A poetic, illustrated tale titled
Violet Footprints by another Barbara. It’s one of the best things I’ve read on the Internet, and it left me feeling good. (Sorry, link no longer works, so it’s been removed.)

When I reached the end, I decided maybe the “Violet” who left the footprints in the story was a _________. (Fill in your choice.)

I predict this author has a bright future.

Later I taught myself to type on an old Smith Corona typewriter my mother or her mother purchased when Mom was in her teens or early twenties. She was born in 1923, if that gives you a clue to its age. It’s one of those typewriters that could be used to trace a murder suspect because of the way it slightly superscripts certain characters. I used it while seated on the floor of my bedroom beside my bed. Sometimes the typewriter rested on the floor, sometimes on a little castoff maple end table.

When I was about eighteen my parents bought me an electric typewriter for Christmas, and when I opened it my mother recalled hearing me pound away on the old one to finish up a term paper a few evenings earlier. She had almost given me the new typewriter then. I used this typewriter on an old sideboard from a great aunt’s house that originally had extra leaves one could add to extend it into a spare dining table. The leaves had, by the time I used it as a desk, been converted into storage shelves under my parents’ breakfast bar.

I later bought my own more modern electric, with a little daisywheel that whirred back into position at each return, instead of the whole carriage moving. I used this typewriter on an old wooden desk my husband bought at a friend’s garage sale. This desk has a center section that lowers to hold a typewriter, which I thought was pretty snazzy. It reminded my father, the first time he saw it, of a desk he used when he was in the Army during WWII. The most frightening detail of this story is, we still own that desk–though not the daisywheel typewriter. We also still own the castoff maple end table. (Oh my God, do we need new furniture.)

I’ve never dreamed of building an office over the garage as a place for me to write (as the man did in Eric Mayer’s post). I’ve been too busy writing. I write where I can, sometimes in bed like Colette, though that doesn’t seem to help me write stories like hers. But then, she never had a laptop computer she could carry anywhere she wanted.

I still do some of my best creative writing on a yellow lined pad with a pencil—and a good eraser.

I also, like Eric, prefer those chunks of uninterrupted time. Even when I think I should have time, I’m interrupted or distracted by pets, by spouse, by my own ineptitude, by the Internet, and by the dryer buzzing, or by guilt and self-loathing over house or yard work left undone. It’s always something.

The writer simply writes through it all. But sometimes it is a real pain.