I remember growing up in the 1970s and , yes, we had long hair ,bell bottom pants and platform shoes. I run into many people today that still say the popular music that came out back then is still better than anything that comes out today and while that’s true, the technology that can be enjoyed today is obviously much better than anything we had before. I think part of the trick is in knowing how to use it.

I’ve just read the beginning of the article over and can see where it might maker me look older than I am, but that’s really half the point I’m trying to make when it comes to things like blogging—that everything has moved so fast technologically you need to be sure that what’s out there is good for your career as a blogger. Most of the time it is.

Here a good example. When I started writing seriously there weren’t anything called blogs and of course there wasn’t even an Internet and the only computers that I remember were on the bridge of the USS Enterprise. (In fact, had you told me about blogs back then, I might have thought it was the title of the latest monster movie from Steven Speilberg.)

I started out on an electric typewriter and thought the height of technology was the white ‘auto-erase’ ribbon that could white out any mistake that I made while I was typing. Back then, a big part of writing anything was all about watching out that you didn’t make too many mistakes and a clean white sheet of 8 x 10 paper could look quite intimidating with nothing on it. Thank God for computers. It took me a while at first, but when I finally found out how to use Spellcheck to my advantage, I could concentrate on the thoughts that I wanted to get down and stop worrying about errors on the page.

The point here is that I concentrate more on those red squiggles after I’ve written out a blog or article. Knowing that I can go back and fix those things after allows me to write the way that I’m supposed to, from start to finish concentrating on getting the whole idea down on the screen. The mistakes and typos can wait until after.

Then there’s the Internet itself. I still love the library and I don’t think that the Internet will ever replace those great buildings for the relative comfort of sitting down in that cozy environment with a good novel. I’ve written three books and while they’re available on the web through Amazon and Chapters in Canada, I still like to see them sitting on a wooden library shelf, but the web has some distinct advantages when it comes to research.

I never imagined when I was writing on that old electric typewriter that one day I’d have all this knowledge at my fingertips, and I can certainly be more productive than ever before sitting in front of my mobile laptop. Change is good.