Lauren Kirshner's first novel, Where We Have To Go , is the story of a family "coming apart at the seams" in 1990s Toronto. Given the era of her novel and the author's age, In Other Words asked Kirshner (who reads at the International Festival of Authors tomorrow) about some of the assumptions hovering around her generation.
IOW: You're a member of the generation that's assumed to be raised "'net fluent." Do you think that's true and if so, how did it play into the writing of your book?
Kirshner: People in my generation are assumed to be naturally 'net fluent, but a lot of us didn't use the Internet until we were teenagers. I was born in 1982, and by the time I was 15, my family had its first computer with Internet. It was a big deal. I mean, I grew up in a house of old-fashioned stuff and we had a rotary phone until I was 10. Becoming "fluent", for me, meant sitting in front of the screen doing searches for jpegs of the Smashing Pumpkins. There was nothing social about my early experiences with digital culture. I was just this hermit in front a big glowing box.
Later I used the Internet to feel not so alone in the whole writing thing. I wanted to know where local writers were reading, so I started checking listings. I liked reading what other local writers were thinking about, so I started following their blogs. About a year before Where We Have to Go was published I started my own blog. I didn't do it out of some deep urge to blog; it was more of an experiment to see if I needed another creative outlet outside of my fictional universe. I did meet lots of interesting people through my blog, but blogging didn't help me with the actual writing of my book. In fiction, I don't need to be concerned about revealing or not revealing myself. For me, that's the pre-condition for being creative.
That being said, the Internet has given writers so many more places to share their ideas, which is a good thing considering print opportunities are shrinking fast. With blogs, we can publish what we want, when we want. But this freedom can even be confusing. You have cool idea, and the next question is, where do I share this? On my blog? My website? As a Facebook status update? In the new project I'm working on? Or how about nowhere?
I'm a believer that certain new ideas don't necessarily need to be shared. Maybe they need to be buried until they actually take some shape. Probably I've spoiled some ideas by springing them out on my blog and not taking the time to circle them and figure out what they're actually saying to me.