Becoming Write-Handed

Another Book Idea?

This blog is about me, not about my work. (Because I'm so darn interesting all on my own!) I don't use this space to write about my job, other than the occasional allusion to office frustrations. There are thousands of blogs about the internet, about brands on the internet, about communities and consumers on the internet, and about the insights that drive marketers to use the internet to connect with their consumers. Writing about those things in a professional capacity has never interested me. I mean, I do that stuff all day. I have those conversations all day every day with very smart people who could probably write a lot more about it than I can. If you're intrigued, check out my friend Leigh's Advergirl or our president Kelly Mooney's blog.

However, in the past several weeks, I have had a few twinges of wanting to write about something that I have seen or understood through my job. I have seen some web sites that I honestly would think of featuring, or explaining, or questioning. But this blog is not about my work, and so I have not written those things.

I have tried keep my career and my personal life compartmentalized - separated from each other by mental walls and sheer force of will. I want to be able to "turn it off" when I come home, or when I am at a party, or when I am at church. But the internet, so aptly referred to as a web, has a way of touching each element of my life - arguably of everyone's life.

And so it happened that I found myself in church this morning, referencing examples from my job. I am participating in a special Lenten class at First Community Church that is based on the provocative series called "Living the Questions."

Today we were discussing Creative Transformation, which led to a conversation about community. What are the characteristics of a community? Why do humans feel the need to socially interact? What happens when a spiritual community is more obsessed with tradition than transformation?

I was stunned to realize that my experience as a digital ethnogpraher has some relevance here. I study digital communities at work. We even wrote a book, The Open Brand, about the crucial role of community in today's digital world. My own master's thesis five years ago was about the online community surrounding Oprah's Book Club. And Oprah's at it again with an online class about spirituality based on Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth.

But what is the role of digital community in spirituality? How do the connections we forge online through Facebook or Second Life or Oprah Winfrey affect us offline, in real life? How do we find meaning in the digital deluge of information and potential online connections we can now find through this mysterious web?

Our group talked about how hard it is to develop true spiritual transformation in the age of today's consumer-based culture. I got all fired up and pissed off and decided I must quit my job that is so tied to the consumer culture.

Then I took a deep breath, and realized I don't need to quit my job. But I do need to decide if this intriguing line of thinking is something I could pursue from a research perspective. I know just enough about the web to know that it can make anything happen. If I were still a graduate student and research assistant, I'd be writing a grant application right now for some funding to study these questions. But I probably just need to put a link on my Facebook page that I'm interested in talking this stuff over with people.

If my church could be so bold as to pioneer a program called "Faith & American Politics," why can't I launch a study of Faith & Community in the Digital Age? 

 

Book Idea

Maybe it's the fact that yesterday, my internet strategy job took yet another turn for the meaningless as I sat in a circle with my teammates and we [literally, I am not making this up] cheered for each other in turn for doing our jobs.

Maybe it's the fact that I really, really like wine. 

Maybe it's the fact that the universe has conspired to bring me in touch with 3 authors recently who went to Italy to discover themselves and publish books about it.

Maybe it's the fact that of the 100 people at our wedding, at least half of them said they had never been to or heard of the Finger Lakes. 

Or maybe it's the effect of spending the last 4 hours on the couch, sipping coffee and chatting with my beloved, all the while staring at John Francis McCarthy's photograph of the golden vines above the Finger Lakes.

Whatever the reason (or combination of reasons), today I am burning with my latest book idea. I get them all the time, book ideas. Not only do I not write the books, I also never write the ideas down. But something about this idea is different. This idea is screaming inside my head so I must write it down or I will have no peace today. And if you believe all that self-motivation mumbo-jumbo, writing down our dreams might actually be the first step to realizing them.

"So what's the idea?" you are probably wondering. "If it takes her this long to write her idea, how will she ever write a book?"

I want to write a love letter to the Finger Lakes.

 

Actually I just want to finish it, since it started about 7 years ago the first time I visited Lucas Vineyards.

The letter continued last year in some blog entries I wrote while we were traveling to the Finger Lakes for our wedding planning trips. I wrote some of those things down because they were so memorable and amazing (and frustrating, and funny) but many of our adventures never got penned.

 

I don't think I wrote about the vineyard where we considered having the wedding until we saw their port-a-potty accommodations for guests (and I visualized myself trying to fit my wedding gown into an outhouse).

I don't think I wrote about Paul, Hammondsport's lovable party animal who congratulated us on our wedding night when we walked into the town pub. I don't think I even wrote about Sheila,the only non wedding guest to share our rented house the week we tied the knot. 

And now, with the desire and urge and absolute necessity to write just burning a hole through my heart (and much of the rest of my life in the process) I am starting to brainstorm a book.

Could I go to the Finger Lakes for one weekend each month the rest of this year and pen my memoir, personal essay, whatever it would be called? In the spirit of Frances Mayes, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sabrina Ward Harrison, and Peter Mayer, all of whom wrote about the areas of the world (mostly European areas) that inspired them?

I don't know that I can ... I mean, I know I can, it's a free country, but I don't know that I can. Can I afford it?  Can I manage it?  Can I turn my life and career around in one passionate undertaking?  Is this the thing that I need to do to shake off this incredible sense of my life going the absolute wrong direction? Is this my "calling"? [Don't think I don't know how corny that sounds!]

The minister at our church (quoting Frederick Buechner) says that God calls us to the place where our great gladness and the world's great hunger meet. In my case, perhaps it's the place where my gladness and the world's great thirst meet? Over a glass of wine in the breathtaking hills of Upstate New York?