A week of low-tech

The media diet continues. Not exactly a media fast, mind you: obviously I'm still occasionally finding my way to the Internet. But it's an effort. And, as I mentioned in a previous post, we are not watching TV, not even listening to radio. We don't know a whole lot of people here. We are On Retreat.

Humans in general are torn between craving interaction and longing for quiet and solitude. The Internet lets you do both at the same time, which is, I suspect, why it is so dangerously time-consuming: until this point in history, you had to have one or the other, never both. The psyche (if one is inclined toward technology) rejoices, and says More, more!

The quiet of this week of retreat is compelling me to notice that I only have a very, very small handful of pieces out at the moment. This is no good at all! (Although it is a function of my having been working on a few larger projects as well as getting in a fair bit of paid editing work, which is good, but even so.) I have a few days left of our fabulous Hobart retreat (surely the best capital city in all of Australia, and I have seen almost all of them by now).

Incidentally, I need to put in a plug for the phenomenally kind, helpful, and friendly people at the Tasmanian Writers Centre. I'll be teaching a one-day workshop for them on the weekend, and they have bent over backwards to make sure I feel welcomed and that I have the support I need as a writer far from home. They fully rock. Thanks, Chris and all!