Connecting

One of the wonderful things about the time we live in is the Internet.  As a writer I cannot imagine the difficulty of completing a novel without it.  Here you have, right at your fingertips, access to all kinds of information and people allowing you to fill out your story that would have had you spending hours in the library in previous days.

Need to find out about a medical condition or a disease for one of your characters?  Want to walk the streets of a city you've set your book in?  Historical research for background or a time frame for a novel?  All of this and more right at your fingertips!

It also puts you in contact with individuals who can put a personal spin on your situation.  In my work-in-progress I have a character who is dealing with a heart problem.  Through the Internet, emails and blogs I have been able to  get questions answered by people who have experienced what my character is going through allowing me to flesh out her feelings.  Even if that doesn't make it into the final draft of the book, it offers me insight into how she is feeling about what she is going through.  This is invaluable to me as a writer, and I think makes my story much better.

I tell you though, it makes me really appreciate those novels that were written before this "high tech" age we're living in.  And I'm grateful for having the technology we have today.