Are letters old fashioned?

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:42:01 GMT

Ponderings about letters, emails and the acceleration of experience.

I met up with a friend today that I haven't seen for 6 months. She lives in China, though originally from the glamorous wilds of Gatwick Airport, Surrey, and it was one of many fleeting meetings in which we exchanged more fundamental truths about our lives than I do with any England bound friend. She told me about a male friend of hers whom she has not seen for 4 years but emails almost every day. She feels he knows her almost as well as her every day lover. Now they are to meet. Exchange pleasantries. Deal with the awkward silences or the natural rests in face to face meetings.

She thinks it will be strange. Is nervous about the meeting. Why, I asked? She feels it is something about having to expose herself on a tangible level that makes her feel vulnerable. Until now it has been virtual - the spawn of new technology, a relationship that can exist without physical meeting. In many ways it feels like a relationship that can only exist because of email, the technology of the era. But then surely the letter established this type of relationship long ago. For years people exchanged anecdotes about their present across the seas, never to see the person to whom they were writing.

Yet at the same time those letters would have taken months to have arrived. There would have been a delay between each other's presents...a lag between the day that each experienced and their re-telling of that experience. With email there is a delay of hours at most. Moments can be translated into words and re-experienced by their reader as soon as the scene can be captured in words. The immediacy of the interaction is speeded up substantially.

As humans I'm sure we have always wanted to share our experiences, whether for reasons of ego or companionship who knows. What is clear is that each of us can be the actor on the stage, and each confident a type of audience that reacts with shock or happiness at each twist of the tale. With the advent of email, blogging, the sharing of personal information, that stage is enhanced and the audience is attracted from many walks of life. Does that affect the story teller and the level of intimacy they are willing to develop with their unseeing, unknown audience? Does the exaggerated anonymity cause the individual to delve deeper into their psyche than every before? The lure of artificial privacy can dupe many a writer into feeling they are free, but one has only to look at the sorry fate of past so-called anonymous bloggers to determine that although the net of interest has been cast wide, so has curiosity, and the online detective has more powerful tools to hand than any ancestral Sherlock Holmes.

What are your experiences of sharing information online? Has it been a liberating experience, or one that you have come to regret?
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In Search of Inspiring Lesbian Fiction & Film

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:32:25 GMT

Hello ladies of a creative and women loving bent,

I've decided to start writing this blog because I've been surfing the internet in search of inspiring lesbian fiction, film & drama and I keep coming to a dead end.

Either it doesn't exist, I'm not very good at finding it or it is so deeply buried within the tangle of web pages that it can never be found!

Two pairs of eyes are better than one, so I want to enlist the help of anyone who is interested in uncovering believable and engaging lesbian or bi characters.

I want to invite people to contribute and turn this blog into a place where women can find story lines that they relate to, and characters who can help them deal with the good and bad stuff of being gay or bisexual. Even if you can only spare a second to add in a link, or comment on an existing list your effort would be much appreciated!

Cheers!
K

P.S. When I was conducting my search I came across a blog that was much purer than any fiction Awakenings: Navigating the spaces between in and out
I don't know the identity of this lone woman, but she writes beautifully about her quest to be true to herself, and I wish her luck.

Imaginative Women - Exploration Blog of Lesbian Fiction & Lesbian Drama: Books

Are letters old fashioned?

Ponderings about letters, emails and the acceleration of experience.

In Search of Inspiring Lesbian Fiction & Film