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Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

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E-Mail Cured My Writer's Block -- Film at eleven

By Katha Pollitt
Posted Friday, May 8, 1998, at 1:41 PM ET

Andrew--yes! I am such a major technophobe, as also in many ways a retrograde person (ergo no doubt my fondness for costume drama--in addition to all else I just like to look at the past--clothes, furniture, landscape, horses, crowds). But I love e-mail and the Internet. If I could figure out how to get into chat rooms (something involving a browser? It was all explained to me but I forget) I would probably chat my life away. As it is I spend much too much time on lists.

RSS

There is something very freeing about writing in this mode. There's the illusion of impermanence and privacy, and also the peculiar combination of distance and intimacy. I used to think of myself as a person who had a lot of trouble writing, but now I realize I love to write. Some days I write all day. What was troubling me was connected with the notion of the finality of what is written--that it would be out there forever, not just imperfect as a piece of work but unconsciously self-revealing in ways that would come back to haunt me, showing the whole world what a bad and foolish person I am. But e-mail is more like a draft or a note or even speech. It's an improvisation, and is taken as such by sender and recipient. And it also has what is lacking in so much writing, which is the felt connection with a reader. No wonder people get carried away and write all kinds of things they regret later.

And that's what I will tell them if I ever get sued for libel for anything I scribble here.

I'm going out to Brooklyn for a bit to see my dad.

More later,
Katha

ps. Today, Saudi Arabian govt. says it will permit the Internet as soon as it can figure out how to keep everything off that would threaten its culture and morals. Like drivinglicencecurious.com and veilweary.org?

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