This post appeared on my blog several months ago under a different title and received a very positive response. As the post encouraged people, I wanted to share it again. I hope you gain benefit from it. It has been updated. Best wishes! Cate
So what do you do when the Internet exposes you to too many new ideas, becomes too much hard work to keep up with and steals time from your creativity rather than adding to it? The answers to those questions have been keeping me pondering over the last six months. At the end of last year, I put down my blogging and social networking activities and worked out whether or not I personally felt they were worthwhile. My answer: it’s a mixed one.
In the midst of my rest time, I was watching a documentary about the new digital era in which they gave an interesting balance to a few old cliched questions. Is quick communication ruining concentration levels in our youth? Do we no longer learn things properly as we can just Google an answer? Is it all just shallow? As a creative person in both a traditional bookish and new geekish way, I am very interested in the answers: but the answers that are right for me. They won’t be the same for everyone.
Yes, our attention span is dwindling, so studies say. However, we now can access ideas and people and connect and change the world for good in ways we never could before. How we live is evolving. It is a new form of industrial revolution that will come with good and bad aspects. Using more cliches, it appears to me to be all things in moderation and it’s how you use it.
For example, I have an ambivalent relationship with the almighty Twitter. I hate communicating in 140 characters. I hate so many people complaining that they have many subscribers but no one even comments on their posts. It smacks of us using each other and having lost our humanity! It can be seen as attention seeking, fame grabbing, faceless and badly aimed marketing. However, Twitter can also be seen as a quick way for busy people to look into what they would otherwise, never have the time to even consider. I find it alerts me to local news when I am in work mode and I have made a few real, valuable friendships through it. Maybe it is just not the perfect medium for me, but I can use it to reach and encourage people, so I will continue to do so… but on a limited basis.
I have found that making discerning choices about what to do and who to follow and not being afraid to cut things out of my feeds is probably the best choice for conserving and feeding my creative energy. I run a creatively based business. In the same way getting buried under piles of accounting, red tape and paper work zaps my work and idea generating time, so does keeping up with the digital fads.
So be brave. Have a good look at a variety of interesting web sites, social networkers and other Internet goodies and see what you like. Try them for awhile, then cull what is too much, doesn’t feed you or just drags you into a negative mindset. People take me off their Twitter feeds all the time. I see my stats run all over the place. I have learnt to let it not bully me into staying connected where I don’t need to be.
Someone suggested that one day a week you should have a ‘digital sabbath’ and stay away from anything computerised and mobile phone orientated. I think it is a great idea. It is the same old argument we had with television. There comes a time when you have to switch off it’s mesmerising force and go out and actually DO something active. Go pick up your pen, instrument, paint brush or craft project. Switching off and balancing, may save your creative soul.
This article and photos are Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2011. Rework Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2012. It may only be reproduced, with my permission, for non commercial purposes only. My name and Copyright must remain intact. For permission, please email me at: cate@virtual-desk.com.au
So what kind of patterns can you build into a character, or use to drive a storyline? You have a choice of positive and negative patterns. It is easy to limit your characters and bias your writing by placing the focus on negative behaviours. You can limit them to being the serial womaniser; the bully; the shy person; the issue avoider; the addict; the co-dependent; the unlucky in love or the self destructive. Try and also consider people’s strengths: confidence in their ability in a specific area; kindness towards strangers or animals; a belief one day they will make it no matter what; love of family; strong faith or intuition; determination; emotional stability. What do they value the most? What will they fight to achieve? That way you will have a more balanced personality and more avenues to explore in your storyline.
Over the last few days I have been trying to slice time out of my mad schedule to catch up on my blog reading. Am I glad I did! As well as Creative Every Day, here is another valuable find: 
I love design and the impact it has on people’s 
blah. We once stayed in a ultra modern hotel that was all black, brown and grey surfaces. I have never felt so cold anywhere. The stone and concrete depressed me. I feel the same way about writing on a piece of white paper with a blue or black pen. It is cold. It doesn’t inspire me. For me to actually want to write, I had to change the background colours on my computer, my Scrivener software colours and font; and I needed to place art supplies such as coloured markers on my desk to inject energy. It now feels like a creative space!
I’ve also found it helpful to have a zip up folder on standby for when I do get to escape my “office.” In it I have sticky notes; lined writing paper I have printed with a pretty watermark; and more than one pen (in case of an ink failure incident.) As it zips, I can stuff all my notes in it, then go be a gypsy and write anywhere. Nothing falls out. It’s about being adaptable. If all you have to write on is a corner of a desk or kitchen table, a folder as a mobile writing lab may work well for you.
I have been writing since I was a child. I started off at an early age with abysmal free verse poetry which became much worse in my teen years. Then I discovered 
Responsible Web Users, We Are!
Perhaps it’s part of being an autobiography writing teacher, but I love reading blogs. I enjoy them as they are real: you can sense it when someone is genuinely sharing with you. The only thing that bothers me is how often I hear how burnt out bloggers feel. It worries me when I keep coming across post after post where bloggers are expressing how wrung dry of inspiration and physically exhausted they are. I read in profiles how bloggers work all day, come home and deal with family needs, then write until insane o’clock, as that is the only writing time they have. From an outsiders point of view, it leaves little mystery as to why writer’s block so often sets in. It’s fuelled by overwhelm and fatigue.
on how to blog, to satisfy the search engine rankings and build an audience, it is recommended you blog daily. If you don’t, there are dire predictions of failure and doom. It comes down to the settings of the search engine ranking robots: which care as much about the needs of flesh and blood humans beings as say, your toaster does. Recently one blogging Twitter feed, which I normally enjoy, started preaching down this path. Such was their fervour that you had to work yourself into the ground to succeed, I unfollowed them. The last thing anyone needs is the whip being cracked at them in an already ‘too-busy’ society.
What you do as a blogger is entirely up to you. Just as long as it’s right for you! From everything I have studied about writing, to write daily is a necessity for writers who are truly serious. May I suggest, that perhaps, as an alternative to blogging every day, keep a journal, or use some of your would-be posts as writing practice? There is a great sense of satisfaction to be had from just writing for YOU, experimenting and having fun for your eyes only. It is all about breaking away from the “toaster mentality” and doing what your creative heart is telling you to do.
includes “After Dark’s” Flying Toasters, who were always the good guys. Particularly the baby ones. “When there’s a job to be done, the flying toasters will be there…” I wish they would bring that screensaver back.
