I'm nervous about our civic culture. I'm not sure the Internet is largely the cause of it. It's certainly the cause of careless writing. People who get used to blurbing things on the Internet are never going to be good writers.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Authors worry. We worry about writing. Worry about our editors, our agents, our reviews, and our readers. We worry about everything, including all forms of social media including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and personal websites.
I think writers are very anxious.
Writing is taking a risk, and it is actually fighting invisible and invincible enemies. They are over-confidence, stupidity, expectation and narcissism.
Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves.
People are worried about what's going to happen to journalism - and they should be. Every day, the blogosphere is getting better and print media is getting worse; you have to be an idiot not to see that.
I think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.
If we lose sight of the fact that writing is entertainment, then writing is doomed.
We're afraid of writing characters different from ourselves because we're afraid of getting it wrong. We're afraid of what the Internet might say.
The Internet makes the writer work harder - I have to say things here I've never said before, or else be caught out in repeating myself.
On the Internet, everyone is writing. There is a great flowering of writing.