Historical Record

Someone said something stupid to me so in true blogger fashion, I am calling their ass out on the internet.

Because I can. Yes, you readers have given me that power. Thanks. *throws hard candy at readers*

Someone said to me that it is sad that authors of today are leaving behind no record of their lives. In the days of Michelangelo, we have reams of notes that he left behind. In other days of yore, we had letters that prolific authors sent to the people they loved, wanted to sleep with or otherwise felt the need to communicate with. But authors of today... well, they will be lost to the sands of time with no record for future generations to mull over.

Um. Hi. This is a blog. A lot of authors have them. We also have computers. Just because we aren't sticking stamps on letters that take us hours to write (because we have to write it, blow the ink dry before we can move on, possibly blot a bit... realize we made a mistake and start the whole damn thing over...) doesn't mean we aren't leaving a record for future generations.

If anything, we are leaving the most detailed record of all time. We not just tell you what we are thinking about (including politics, sex, writing, religion, current events, our love lives, child rearing, etc.) we also tell you what we are eating (often including pictures), where we go (again with the pictures) and what we thought about all that. The digital age has allowed us, for the first time in history, to literally document every second of our lives, no matter how unimportant, through a series of blogs, facebook and twitter updates, foursquare checkins and other social media outlets.

If, years from now, for some reason I become someone that a kid wants to write a paper on, they will have an ABUNDANCE of information about me. More than anyone would ever in a million years want.

How on earth can anyone suggest that the modern author is getting lost in the sands of time?

Or the modern anything? If you want to write a biography on any famous person, now is the time to do it. You can just follow them on all those media outlets I mentioned and wait for them to do something wonky.

This leads to people who have never met me thinking that they know me very well. And although they know some eerie details, they don't know ME. I mean, I am a hermit. The me they see is out there for the public to see. The real me... well, I am hiding behind this blue computer. Sort of like the wizard of Oz but with coffee. Lots of coffee.

I have no clue why this bothered me so much but I just wanted to mention to the public at large that you can see inside peoples lives in a way that no other generation could have dreamed of. And yet, for some reason, the feeling is that this age is being 'lost.'

Because it isn't on paper.

Really, I don't know why this bothered me so much but really it did. Anyway, I am off to eat some crazy imported chocolates. It turns out, from my experimentation, that 99% cacao includes very little sugar and is bitter as hell. And that the worlds best chocolate is ok. So far, though, I am most impressed by the Dutch coffee/chocolate hard candies and the New Hampshire chocolate. Go figure.

(See, you even know my chocolate preferences. Someone, quick... put it on paper.)

Rant over. Off to edit a book.

Happy writing!