Eeeee-ntrepreneur

“A CD. How quaint. We have these in museums.” Eoin Colfer, Irish writer, “The Eternity Code”

I have a flip phone, which probably tells you everything you need to know. I also use a hand whisk. If I could, I would set my own type by hand, roll on the ink with a wooden brayer and print one page of my work at a time. Denied such opportunity by the fact it is 2018, I write across multiple electronic platforms. My news stories, my essays, my first book — it’s all digital.

Last week — egged on by my agent and talk of “reader accessibility” and “broadening your platform” — I went so far as to take the Facebook plunge. I started with church ladies and gentlemen, figuring they would be nice enough to tell me if I did anything weird. No one’s said anything like, “Get thee hence, Luddite.” So, I must be OK. Or, my church peeps are overly polite. Or not speakers of Shakespearean.

It’s true. I’m out way out there now and have lasted longer than the mere 22 hours I spent on Twitter, which is far too much like playing racquetball for my temperament. But, it was no accident I avoided anything tech from sundown Friday to late Sunday afternoon like I had suddenly converted to Orthodox Judaism and then some. I needed that sabbath, that siesta, that breather.

I also needed a nap, a Tylenol and, as I told one friend, “it’s a good thing I don’t drink, because I would probably need that, too.”

It’s now Monday in Appalachia. The frost is thick, the clouds look like a gray quilt and I am refreshed. I’ve posted here. I’ve posted there. I am broadened. I am accessible. I am connected — in both English and kindergarten-level Spanish no less.

I am also holding onto my flip phone with a white-knuckle grip.