Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Yesterday I wrote about how, for every trend, there’s a counter trend. One of the ways in which I see that being expressed is with the trend toward more highly sophisticated and complicated technology. It greets us everywhere.
My husband and I recently moved into a home with all new appliances, and I’ve found that my microwave and oven are loaded with electronics. Why, they’re so smart, I’m surprised I even need to figure out temperature and time settings. I think if I asked them, they’d feed my dog on schedule precisely the same amount of food each meal. But, as we all know, the downside of this sophistication is when it doesn’t work.
I’ve memorized the buttons I need to push on my phone to reach technical help because both my microwave and oven have had technological meltdowns, resulting in the replacement of their panels.
Okay. So we have the trend toward the technology. But we all live with the frustrations of figuring out how to use that technology and having the equipment malfunction.
That leaves room for the counter trend.We’ve seen it expressed in fiction through the enthusiastic and seemingly nonstop interest in Amish/Mennonite/Shaker novels. Ah, the simple life. We don’t really want to abandon all the conveniences of our lifestyles, but it is nice to slip away to a quieter, simpler place.
And we’re seeing it in nonfiction. Crafts. Working with our hands. Creating something old-fashioned with a new-fashioned verve.
Take quilts. Quilting is an increasingly popular pastime, but because few of us live out in the country, today’s quilts don’t always reflect the gently rolling hills and bright colors of the countryside. Instead, cityscapes are showing up on quilts. Picture a patchwork quilt with a scene of a city’s skyline at night. Or the maze of interconnecting, overlapping freeways, overpasses and bridges.
A craft book entitled Zombie Felties is releasing this month from Andrews McMeel. Gone are the sweet and cute felties of the past.
Sewing is the new knitting.
And men are converting their garages into workshops. I walk around my neighborhood on a nice day, and the garage doors are open. The men are inside with saws buzzing away as they make tables, chairs, porticos, fancy garden gates.
The list goes on and on.
As you think about this desire for simplicity and a return to hands-on “building” of something, how does it rock the way you think about what you’re writing?
Your posts yesterday and today don’t so much rock my world as confirm that I’m on-track with my nonfiction WIP, a book for moms. Sounds like the basics may be back in style, which fits me perfectly. Hope you’re right, Janet. I love this counter-culture way of looking at what’s coming. That’s so much more encouraging as wondering if one is the proverbial salmon swimming upstream.
Oops! That’s what happens when one doesn’t reread before sending. I do know that the last sentence should be, “than,” rather than, “as.”
From one who has seen the IPhone do more than a computer that took up half the basement (husband built it) years ago, I have to remember as I write anything historical that there was a time when a protagonist couldn’t pop a cell phone out of a pocket and call home.
Lots of children’s books written in past years wouldn’t work today because now the kids in similar dangerous situations would simply pull out their phones and call for help. I think we’ll be seeing more historical fiction because modern technology can spoil some plots.
Yes, kids can pop out their phones and call for help, but batteries can die, phones can be lost and reception can be sketchy.
In which case, the stakes are heightened because these technology kids are so dependent on the ease of texting that their life skills are diminishing.
So, it can be used to our advantage.
Batteries die, signal is lost, bad reception–sound like great plot twists. It also sounds like we can take advantage of technology in our writing just by using all the ways it can go wrong–which is what I am doing in my children’s book.
I think with the way technology changes so fast is why the fantasy genre and some sci-fi have taken off. At least that’s what I’m hoping 😉