What can be so hard about being an author? After all, this is the Information Age. It should be the easiest period in history for authors. Almost anything we write ends up being stored somewhere as data that someone will read at some point. Maybe in the next minute. My little blurb can be read by thousands of people, if I happen to be lucky enough to have lots of friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter. And whatever I write gets replicated a billion times and stored in countless places, to be digested by an untold number of parties in the future. At this very moment, some marketer is tailoring a pitch to me based on this little rant. My friend’s newest baby, who can barely walk may someday be able to access this paragraph in the blink of an eye, without the need of such a humongous device as a smartphone. (Actually, I hope her life doesn’t become boring enough to retrieve this.)
An instant audience! Great news for authors, I guess.
Well, I have to admit that all this has generated another irrational fear to add to the makeup of my DNA. Logophobia. The obsessive fear of words. Because I know that ninety-nine percent of the above audience has already stopped reading this and has drifted onto something much more relevant and interesting, such as how to survive an attack by a bear.
As a consumer of information, you constantly filter through an astounding weight of electrons to focus on a minuscule blurb of information which might provide enough interest and relevance to be worth the next ten to thirty seconds of your focus.
Oh, god. I’ve already taken moments of your life that you will never get back. Logophobia!
