Square Circles

The experience of online writing can be a paradox. You write to the world and reap an intimate experience. This intimacy occurs when you receive almost instantaneous responses. If you're writing in solitude, in a lost little corner of life, posting a message feels like casting out notes in bottles to the vagaries of ocean currents.

An example may help: yesterday I noticed an entry (finally!) in a new blog established by Yahoo! Search a week ago. Because it was open for comments, I left one asking for more useful writers' research tools. In the rush to post, I made a mistake in the URL for Writer's Edge blog and found no quick way to correct it. When viewers clicked on my signature, they were sent to an error page (how embarrassing!)

Nonetheless, not long afterward an email arrived from a man who had read my comment. He had to have dug around to find the address writersedge@att.net. Although people build websites hoping for visitors, when one has obviously riffled through your files, it can be unsettling. Fortunately the communicator was pleasant, friendly, and extremely helpful, and we exchanged several messages on the subject of online research tools for writers.

This morning I started a post on some more technical aspects of the Yahoo! Search Blog at another website. I discovered part of my message contained a URL to a page in the website of yesterday's email converser. The irony is that I was writing about part of yet another person's comment on the new blog. This reminds me of the old saying about running around in little square circles and about casting bread upon the waters.

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