Evolution of a Writer

I'm sure you know the old adage: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

But do they? Really?

Last week I dug out an old copy of my educational philosophy. I wrote it back when I was finishing grad school, and now I need to update it because my school is going through a transition.

Reading through it reminded me of some similarities in my writing and teaching careers.

When I first decided to become a teacher, I took a job teaching history in high school. That was 31 years ago, but I still remember saying to my husband, "I can't believe they're going to pay me to talk about history all day."

All my fellow teachers can stop laughing now. 😂 It didn't take long for me to realize that there was far more to teaching than "talking about history all day."

About that same time, I was writing my first book - a looooong historical novel. No surprise that, although I got positive feedback, I was often told that the history needed to take second place to the story.

Fortunately, for both my students and my readers, I learned my lesson.

I learned that teaching is more about the students than the content, and I learned that writing is more about the reader than my love of history. I guess you could say I really took that message to heart since I now write suspense rather than historical fiction.😇

Anyway, as I was pondering the changes in both my educational philosophy and my writing, I kept coming back to how much the world has also changed in the past 30 years.

The technology that pretty much rules our lives now, was fairly nonexistent at that point. In school we still used those mechanical copying machines that left you covered in purple ink. For my writing, I relied mostly on a legal pad and pencil before eventually upgrading to the miraculous word processor that didn't require whiteout!

But how have things changed?

~  My students cannot conceive of a world where you can't reach someone instantly.
I think fondly of those wonderful AOL message boards which (apart from early RT and RWA conferences) were my only link to other writers.

~  Today, readers email us or post messages on FB or Twitter. It's not at all unusual to be friends with your fans or with other writers.
I cherished the letters sent by Mary Jo Putney in response to my fan mail. (Snail mail, of course. There was no other kind.) She was my first link to the world of "real writers," and I appreciated the time she took to respond to a newbie.

~  At night, after my children were asleep, I used to seclude myself in a quiet room and write my heart out.
These days, if I haven't gotten sidetracked by FB when signing in to #1k1hr, I'm constantly tempted to "just log in and see what everyone is up to," a classic case of the FOMO that Terri Reed wrote about a few weeks back.

~ I have walls of research books I could lose myself in, but when I need to know what a particular town in Texas looks like, I can have an image in the amount of time it takes me to type the name into a search engine.

For me, the single biggest change also has to do with technology.

Thirty years ago - or even ten, I never would have had the courage to write inspirational fiction. I didn't think I knew enough, was eloquent enough, or had sufficient experience to write about faith in my life, let alone others' lives.

But I learned something about that too. And I learned it on the internet.

I don't remember exactly how I stumbled across Matt Maher's music videos, but from them, I gained the courage to try to find my voice in Christian fiction.

I'd pretty much stopped writing at that point. But then I heard this song.

And if I ever need to be reminded that I'm not in this alone...

It's easy to bemoan the changes the internet has wrought (especially in terms of distraction and lost work time), but there are so many amazing benefits.

Maybe the more things change, the more they stay the same in their essence.  That's especially true if you consider the greatest truth of all.

This may be my favorite of all Matt's songs, and it's a wonderful reminder of why those of us who write inspirational fiction write what we write - we lift high the banner of the cross.

I thought it might be fun today to talk about how our writing lives (or just our lives) and expectations have changed due to technology.

So, has the internet changed you and your writing? For better or worse?