My friend’s daughter is an aspiring writer and recently interviewed me. This is what I told her:
1. Do you work for someone specifically or do you have an agent or have to find someone new to write for after you finish a project?
I own my own freelance writing business and spend around half my time asking people if I can write for them and the other half actually writing. I don’t have an agent.
2. What kind of writing is it?
Tech and travel writing for websites, newspapers, and Fortune 500 companies. I’ve also written a couple of books.
3. Do you enjoy it?
No. I LOVE it. Doesn’t feel like a job. More like a calling really. I have no plans of retiring and intend on writing until I die, I like it so much. 😃 Continue reading…
Lake Bennett, Canada—courtesy Lindsey Snow
I was recently interviewed by popular author Melinda Emerson, aka SmallBizLady, for an upcoming podcast about my book Log Off. This is what I told her.
Why should I read your book?
I believe we live in the most distracted, bottomless, demanding, opportune, and noisiest time in all of human history. That makes finding offline (or digital) balance very hard indeed. It’s a great time to be sure, and we’re all empowered with more life-changing tools than ever before (i.e. internet, smartphones, work from anywhere). But we must deliberately harness these powerful tools with measured boundaries, otherwise they can dictate how we live our daily lives rather than consciously choosing how we want to. But offline balance isn’t just about good health—it’s the key to greater income, growth, fulfillment, freetime, and lasting relationships. That’s what my book puts forth in a short and prescriptive 100 pages.
Why is online addiction a growing problem?
While online addictions certainly existed in the desktop and laptop computing days, they didn’t go mainstream until the smartphone era about a decade ago. To compound the issue, the more information and entertainment that gets digitized, the easier it is to get lost in the bottomless search for distractions.
How does too much internetting negatively affect our lives?
The last decade of research shows that excessive internetting, smartphoning, and social media make us miserable. There are two reasons for this. First, online abuse stifles our individual and collective creativity and productivity. Secondly, it keeps us from bonding and connecting with others in more meaningful ways. That is to say that social media is mostly the illusion of relationships. True relationships develop largely offline, though facetime, human touch, body language, and shared presence and experiences. While social media can sometimes facilitate that, it mostly isolates us. In fact, in-person meetings have dwindled in the social media era, as opposed to being boosted by it. This all matters because all of us want to contribute and all of us are social creatures. Continue reading…
