How to make friends and write a book

Does it matter if technology rewrites literature? Not if the human element isn't forgotten

I wrote an earlier post on how I get my ideas down on paper - or screen - so it was interesting to read The Guardian's article on a similar topic: How technology rewrites literature. The part that interested me the most was how the Internet has made it easier for writers to research their ideas and topics. While this is certainly true, I hope we don't get complacent and forget that when researching, talking to people is still one of the best ways to get a true understanding of some issues. Having a conversation with a woman at a dinner party was what empowered me to write The Day We Are Born - I discovered we both had the same experience of depression when we were teenagers, and both had the same sense of humor about it - then and now. I suddenly had that 'I'm not alone!' epiphany. So I've tried to portray both these sides of the coin in my novel -the difficulties and the humor. And from that one conversation (which spiraled into many more, usually involving cappuccino muffins), I made a friend and a beta-reader!