Out with the old....

Ah! Day One of the new year, and I've been busy clearing out last year's debris. The paper!! Had my shredder going full tilt, scrapping paper from the past ten years--receipts, oil bills, ancient birthday cards, dead insurance policies. Ugh. Maybe a paperless universe wouldn't be so bad? Anyway, yes, this is the year that Kindle invades Canada. A purse-sized device that can hold 35,000 books. How many words does that equal? Too many. I'm sorry, but I prefer my books in print between soft or hard covers, books that I can recycle by passing on to friends or donating to charity sales. Not that there's anything wrong with going around with a thing in your purse that's loaded with all that stuff--all those words all those writers sweated over in the solitude of their desks, kitchen tables, cars, cafes, It's just that I've always been the type who likes writing with pens and pencils, and then going to my desktop or laptop with a handwritten draft like a roadmap. The type who refuses to get a cellphone simply because I hate phones, have hated phones ever since...well, as long as I can remember. Let's just say I'm happiest communicating via ink and a piece of paper as well as email. Day Two of this blogging, and ya know, I can see how it could be fun. I can see how it allows you to ruminate, and (so far) shields you from all those who, with great justification, would say, Who gives a crap what she thinks about blah blah blah? Yeah, so I am overcoming this feeling that the last thing the world needs is more blog blah blah. Just as when I go into Chapters and ask myself, quite sincerely, if the world really needs more books. Well. Yeah. I guess it does. As long as we writers are breathing--and words are swords just as they are ploughshares. So it goes. And so here's to a year of adapting rather than lying down in the dust. Cheers!