Internet Addiction

Blogging is strange... today the title of my post insists on turning itself into Hindi... It SHOULD say Internet Addiction.

My addiction to the internet is ooooold... I was going to write about that today but it would bore you... And yes, I am still reading and vastly enjoying Minette Walters' books, and when I have finished Fox Evil, I am going to get on my broomstick, fly to the library and find the ones I have missed!
But I did love (and was distracted by) this cartoon.



Sort of says it all.... Manners are just as important on the Net as off it.

I've been hanging out on a forum, lately, where the game of "bait the n00b" seems very popular. I don't think I am very happy with it but there is information on this board that is useful to me, so I lurk, often in dismay as I see people attacked, for no offence other than asking a question that is obvious to the other, more experienced members of the forum - the "ruling class" members in particular.

I was wondering what drives people to do that... the only answer I could come up with for ages was pecking-order. On the lines of "If I can make you feel worse, it makes me feel better"... Sad.
How about a little helpfulness instead, or as my father would say, "if you can't say anything nice or useful, keep your mouth shut" (in this case your fingers still?)

Maybe there is more to it than that. Maybe the "ruling clique" of members on this forum feel that by knocking down some poor n00b they are raising themselves up, but more - they are establishing a level of dominance that reinforces THEIR "right" to be there; any remaining n00bs, or timid people like me, dare not post at all... (By the way, I should point out that most of these people are not mods of the board, just regulars.) So yes, this looks like pecking order in its nastiest form. In fact on one part of the board, one regular member who is reliably helpful and friendly to ALL, is repeatedly maligned and lambasted by the ones who are not... something I have seen on another board as well. A traitor to her class?

The thing to remember about newbies is that although he/she might appear to be a total idiot, asking the most stupid questions, and maybe not speaking the flavour of English we would prefer, we were ALL there once. Once every one of us was a newbie; and the people we remember most kindly are those who helped us bootstrap ourselves up, patiently assisting and answering or referring to somewhere we could get the answers we needed.

But this issue of the "ruling clique" bothers me. It seems to be a way of establishing territory, and the net-word pwned" roughly translated owned suggests territory again...

I played a MMORPG (translation: multi-media online role playing game) for two years or more, till it became very clear to me that what was going on was that the "aristocracy" of older players, who were by far the richest (in game wealth) were quite determined to keep the less aristocratic players "in their place". There was no chance of a newer or casual player EVER passing some of the tests in this game as the aristos would cheat in any way possible to keep them from anything that might give them a chance to join their class. While complaining bitterly about OTHER people cheating.

Is this really the kind of world we want our virtual worlds to be? Don't we have a chance to do something BETTER?

On writing

Well, here I am. Always said I wouldn't have a blog but - well, if you are a writer at heart the itch is always there...

After fighting it for many years, I've come to the conclusion that writing is a kind of addiction. I read a great deal, and one of the many factors behind my enjoyment of a good book is that I want or need to emulate the artistry of the author. I want to create something that is as good or even better. Many books I have read start well and - peter out. As if the author is good at the beginning, has great ideas, and then is not good at the endgame. Or maybe is asked by the publisher to change something.

Sometimes, I read quite compulsively, one book after another. And now and then arrives a delight! One delight I discovered recently was an author called Minette Walters. I've read one of her books a few weeks ago; that was Acid Row, which greatly impressed me - as the publishers like to say, as "unputdownable". Well last week I raided my local charity shop (thrift store for Transatlantic readers) - and got The Echo.

The Echo is dense with suspicion while it still has love. Minette Walters takes topics that in the hands of another could simply shock, or produce prejudicial attitudes - murder, abuse, crimes that people commit against other people, religious belief, suicide - and deals with them sympathetically, making their perpetrators are HUMAN, lovable and needy - just as she takes other characters and makes them into unexpected monsters.

She writes for intelligent readers, brought up on Poirot, Holmes and Taggart, and many many other detective stories, and wraps their minds around a group of fully human characters, with all their hurts, losses and indignities, and builds this into a delicious tangle that slowly unravels. NONE of her characters is a stereotype, even the policeman called out on Christmas Day.

I particularly loved the character of Lawrence. An elderly solicitor, a Jew by descent, a wise man and a godly one. A Jungian stereotype in a way (the Wizard) but also an intense, lovable character in his own right.

Both Acid Row and The Echo are high drama, comedy, beautifully characterized and delicately structured, and I would highly recommend both. I'm looking forward to devouring The Breaker (in the omnibus). Watch this space!