Books in Canada

WRITERS COME TOGETHER IN GROUPS FOR VARIOUS REASONS. There is the impulse to share things: gossip, complaints, hints on how to work. For some it is important to get feedback and reaction to work; otherwise, a piece can be published and yet disappear without leaving a discernible trace, like a rock dropped down a bottomless well. Finally, there is the comfort of knowing there are others like themselves. Writers tend to be strange beings, and meeting others of the same ilk makes them feel a little less strange.

Yet in the end, the conventional wisdom is right: writing is a solitary occupation. You sit in front of a machine, and it is up to you to make up the words that go into it. Of course, the nature of that machine has changed. Think back to just 10 years ago, when many books and articles came out about writers encountering word processors. Now, with a modem, I can dial the local university library and view a list of books on the subject of the internet, that Hydra-headed construct that links millions of computers around the globe with mine. My screen comes alive with words I did not put into it. Once more I encounter the proliferation of new terms, again the hyper-enthusiasm. At an artists' dinner recently, a wild-eyed academic told me of the advantages of becoming a cyber-being and existing on every part of this planet at once.

I wish I had the ability of one of the great humorists to describe these new conditions, to avoid the "cyber-babble" that seems to overtake writers confronted with the emerging "Information Superhighway." Mark Twain might have liked the new technology. After all, he was one of the first to adopt a fiendishly new device called the typewriter, which baffled the more conservative literati of his day. However, he also lost thousands investing in less-than-functional early typesetting machines. Stephen Leacock also cheerfully confronted novelty, but often as not found himself running "madly off in all directions."

What this new technology has wrought would at first glance seem to be a contradiction: the electronic writers' group. Now one can confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with one's fellow writers without ever leaving the keyboard in one's darkened garret.

To find the electronic writers' group, one has to take a sharp left turn off the Information Superhighway, and on to the rough gravel of the Information Back Road. Fidonet is the name of a grassroots network run by computer hobbyists based in communities of all sizes. Through an ingenious relay scheme using only long-distance phone lines, messages can be sent to anyone in the English-speaking world who wants them, all in the space of three days. Fidonet is not linked to institutions, costs much less than its bigger brother Internet, and goes to smaller, more obscure places. It is a tricky beast, subject to breakdowns, misdirected mail, and the vagaries of volunteer labour and hardware. However, as with Dr. Johnson's dog walking on its hind legs, the wonder is not that the thing is done well, but that it is done at all.

On this network we find the WRITING ,.echo" (an evocative term meaning, for reasons unknown, "message conference"). Fido has more than 600 echoes distributed world-wide, from COOKING to COMICS to GAY AND LESBIAN ISSUES. Its users call it a "tavern" -- an appropriate metaphor, since many writers' gatherings take place in smoky beer dens. Allow me to buy you a virtual soda (never, under any circumstances, say "the drinks are on me") and introduce you to WRITING, an international online forum for writers.

Superficially, it bears little resemblance to a real writers' group (let alone a tavern) because it is made up entirely of words on a screen. More than 100 messages a day are posted from all comers of the network, on this continent and across- the-waves locales, by about the same number of regular and occasional posters. Messages are communicated mainly to individuals (though some are addressed to that big universal "ALL"), and some may be addressed to you personally, but they are meant to be read by everyone. Whoever cares to may reply to, or "join in," an existing conversation. The messages themselves are more or less what might be traded around any writers' group. Points of grammar are argued, information exchanged, opinions voiced. What seems especially popular in this group are threads (a chain of messages under the same subject heading, which over time can mutate or branch out like a tree), where various kinds of mayhem are discussed in the form of science fiction or mystery plots. The advantage of using a hatpin to murder royalty was one popular topic, as was the possible means of blowing up a future airplane carrier. Allegedly viable plans for creating a real, fire-breathing dragon have been drawn up.

Works in progress are also critiqued, and this is where the electronic form of workshopping differs most from the "real." On Fidonet lengthy messages are too expensive to send great distances by phone lines, so works critiqued are limited to excerpts no longer than a single typed page. Usually, rather than having notations in the margin, or a single paragraph at the end summing up a critic's opinion, the excerpt is split open and autopsied, with a fine of text alternating with one of commentary. It is a very lively form of criticism: reading it is like watching a tennis match. The on-echo master (mistress?) of this technique is Patricia C. Wrede, a fantasy novelist from Minneapolis with about seven books to her credit (including Mairelon the Magician and The Raven Ring). She could simply call attention to herself and let fans adore her, but she works hard in the echo, dissecting the least promising bits of Sword and Sorcery for no pay.

You see, impressive resumes are not what is important in this group, though the more experienced writers do answer many questions. The key is participation, and it's the quality of such participation that counts.

Much gossip is traded on the echo. People complain about their medical conditions, or brag about their writing successes. Many are quite frank about their problems, because the computer screen, which the writer usually communes with alone, functions as a kind of psychotherapist. The medium is ephemeral and receptive. Emotions, because they are expressed in only a few lines, seem more elemental. At times, reading the messages is like seeing people's diaries pop open. Clear pictures of personalities emerge, although these may or may not have something to do with the real person. Certainly they have to do with their real self-image. Most people's ways of posting are quite distinctive, and consistent.

Echo participants also exchange disks with more complete samples of work, as well as photos and cards, so it's not only one's electronic mailbox that becomes more interesting. Members of the tavern take on projects on behalf of the entire group. Two volumes of collected works, called Eavesdropping (partially in memory of a tavern member's roof-repairing adventures), have been issued for the benefit of those who wish to receive them.

Works that make it out into the real arena of paper and print give some indication of the variety of the echo. Published this year were Patricia C. Wrede's The Raven Ring, and The Dubious Hills by Pamela Dean, whose interests in the echo are writing about Shakespeare, and grammar. Lars Eighner has won widespread acclaim in the US media for his Travels with Lizbeth, a memoir of homelessness. The Horseman: Obsessions of a Zoophiliac by "Mark Matthews" is exactly what it sounds like, and this frequent participant's predilection is a source of amusement for regulars, and a shock for newcomers. Works described as "in progress" or being submitted to publishers include a formally experimental novel of Kurdish life in northern Iraq written by a resident of British Columbia, and a history of the television program "Hawaii Five-O."

The group is large enough to encompass a great range of tastes and interests. Fantasy and science fiction often dominate here (the echo was founded by fantasy writers in Toronto and Minneapolis who used Fidonet as a means of keeping in touch with one another), but experimental writing, children's literature, playwriting, non-fiction, and even technical writing are also discussed. Poetry is relegated to a different echo, which is a blessing to those who have read too many postings by firsttime poets describing the sky crying rain. Still, WRITING is a cross-section of the whole of the writing and want-to-be-writing world, meaning that for many the pinnacle of achievement in the art is the productivity and reputation of a Stephen King.

The youngest participant admits to being 13, the oldest, more reticent, is somewhere in her seventies. Several echo members have severe physical disabilities. A few have been in the group since its inception in 1986, and have seen every conceivable question and argument roll through it, rehearsed with different players. Women participate in this tavern to a much greater degree than in most computer-message groups. One reason for this is the peaceful, cooperative nature of WRITING. Other conferences, such as most of those on the Internet, are intensely competitive, inhabited by those who, if you make a mistake, tend to jab their finger down and go "bzzzzt! Thank you for playing!" in the manner of a popular game show. They try to one-up each other constantly with displays of knowledge and prowess. Such individuals, referred to in computer vernacular as "twits," show up in WRITING once in a while, but, unlike the Internet, the conference has strict rules of conduct. These are enforced by the "moderator," who in effect runs the conference. The moderator, who is elected periodically by the membership, has the power to cut off users' access to the echo if rules -- such as those against abusive language and personal attacks -- are disobeyed.

One such "twit," rebuffed, said angrily that he was actually a famous writer, and merely testing the group with an appearance of ignorance. He gave as proof of his identity an ISBN number, saying that it belonged to one of his many works. Someone on the echo did some research and found that the number was for The Butterfly Plague, by Timothy Findley. The deception was laid bare by another echo member who wrote Findley in France about the matter, and received a kind but puzzled letter in return. This incident at least had the value of getting American echo members to seek out Findley's books, and he acquired some new readers in this way.

Bringing new ideas to the attention of other people is one of the benefits of taking part in the tavern. It's not possible to sit in a comer and see only people exactly like oneself. Of course a major commonality among echo members is comfort with, and access to, a computer. CBC Radio reports that approximately 60 per cent of Canadian homes have a computer, but so far only 30 per cent of them are hooked up to a modem. The world, however, is changing. Some of the participants in Fidonet were ham radio and hobbyist telegraph operators. They must find it amazing, and a little dismaying, that the kind of international chat they needed expensive equipment and exams and licences to conduct is now being engaged in by bright 12-year-olds with their new Christmas presents.

For those attracted to or involved in writing, but not living in cities where real writers' workshops can be found, the electronic version at least puts them in touch with sympathetic consciousnesses. For others, the electronic writers' group need not be a substitute for the real thing, but an extension of it. Laurie Campbell of Burnaby, B.C., described well the virtues of WRITING in a message on the echo:

From: LAURIE CAMPBELL Refer#: 16131

To: JACK RUTTAN Recvd: NO

Subj: Re: Writing about WRITING Conf: (117) WRITING

That's pretty hard to put into a short message. Through the knowledge and experience that we're exposed to in the tavern I've learned how to present my writing better, I've learned how to tighten up my writing so that I say the same thing with the same flavour in fewer, more effective words.

I've learned that my telling anecdotes is considered a Skill, and salable at that, which is something I would never have looked at as a possibility if I hadn't spent time with these people.

I've learned how to critique my own work more effectively by watching how other people critique the excerpts posted, and arguing with others over points in their critiques of the excerpts. The way it has affected my work is to make it jell from something I dreamed of being able to do into something I know I can do.

I've teamed an incalculable amount about submitting my work to publishers. If ever I am published it will be because of the tavernites; their knowledge, experience, comfort, support, encouragement, generosity, kindness. They've changed the way that I look at my writing and being a writer.

In the online world, everyone becomes a publisher as well as a reader, from Ph.D.s to those more comfortable writing with crayons. Such a levelling gives a healthy jolt to the notion that print is some distant, unquestionable authority. A frequent sign off in echo messages is the acronym YMMV, meaning "Your Mileage May Vary." It's not a very satisfying or final summing up, because it leaves so much up to the readers themselves. They try and experiment with new things, finding what suits each individual. "Dancing in chaos" is how the writer Ann Diamond describes participating in these computerized forums. If you do dance in it, you can make some sense of the onrush of information. Strangers will go to great lengths to supply you with definitions or ideas you were thinking of but could only partly get; notions you didn't know you wanted or were interested in appear magically in front of you. There is a lot of choice in working this way, and a lot to digest. It can be trivia or misinformation at its worst. But when you jump into it, you find a way through it. You see the threads leading you through the electronic maze.