I met a writer the other day. Let's call her Roberta. She's written a number of books and wanted some advice on getting published. So I mentioned a few websites that she should check out.

Then she surprised me by saying that she does all of her research at the library - offline. Yep, she even looks up stuff in encyclopedias. Whaddya know.

The woman doesn't even own a computer. Okay, she used to have one, but it got stolen. Luckily, she saved her first drafts onto floppy disks. Yeah, that's right: floppies. At least they weren't 5-1/4" ones. That would have been totally retro.

So I asked her if she surfed the web when she had the computer. No. When at the library, did she use any of the computers there to check out the Internet? No.

The woman had never been online before. A web virgin.

Maybe it's just me, but I found it really odd that Roberta, a writer of fantasy no less, had never explored the digital universe. Heck, my grandmother has an email address. And she's now addicted to online auctions. But that's another story.

Me? I don't know what I'd do without the Internet. Then again, I might get a lot more writing done without all the cool distractions. And the Hofflegangers.

Time for a little list:

Articles to write: 5
Books to revise: 1
Websites to create: 1
Weddings to attend: 1
Fall wardrobe: needs work
Stress level (out of ten): 2.5