Can a technophobic writer be successful in today’s writing & publishing landscape?

Last year, I attended an interest meeting for the writer’s group at my local library. I was hoping it would be like a year round NaNoWriMo: a bunch of people who like to write hanging around with laptops banging out words and taking occasional breaks to chat informally about craft. Unfortunately, it was nothing at all like that and, while there were some nice people there, they were on a very different writing path then I was so it really wasn’t a good fit for me for a number of reasons I won’t get into. I was also the youngest person there by a good 15 years or so which didn’t help things.

I stuck around for the whole meeting just to be a sport but I really knew it wasn’t for me at this exact moment:

One of the women there was complaining about email and how she refuses to use it or the internet in general. Several others nodded and indicated their agreement and this set off a complain session about how many of them refused to use Facebook or Twitter either. Then one woman said, “Ten years ago, who even knew about the internet?”

Though I’d been quiet all meeting, I couldn’t help myself. I blurted out, “You didn’t have the internet 10 years ago?” Because, 10 years ago, I’d already been running my online company for 4 years and I’d had the internet for years before that. I figured she’d misspoke and had meant something like 30 years ago but, to my surprise, almost the entire room chorused that, no, they hadn’t even heard of the internet 10 years ago.

So, not only were most of the people in the room technophobic about things like email and social networking, over half the room wasn’t even aware of the internet for a big chunk of its existence? Or, as I think more likely, they were blindly agreeing with the original lady even though what she’d said didn’t make sense in an “us” vs “them” gang up on the only young person mob mentality.

I’m not saying I’m some kind of technophile that can’t hang out with people who aren’t into technology. But so much of the writing word today is online: it’s where the community and resources are. The publishers are online. The agents are online. Heck, most of the print markets are online. How can you just decide to ignore that entire world?

Sure, Twitter and Facebook can be time sucks but they can also be incredibly powerful tools. How can you call yourself a writer and be so closed minded? How can you be open to possibilities and opportunities both for and in your writing if you shoot down everything new and unfamiliar?

I don’t see how any writer who completely discounts the value of the internet as a whole can ever achieve any success as a writer. Even if you never plan to publish and you just write for fun, you’re still cutting yourself off from a wealth of knowledge and community by refusing to let technology into your writing life.

But I was the only person in the room that day who felt that way so I’d love to hear what you think. Is there a place for the technophobic writer in today’s publishing world? Have you always embraced technology or were you reluctantly dragged into the present day kicking and screaming?

(No matter what keywords I gave it, this very NSFW photo is what Zemanta wanted me to use for this post. You see what words I’ve used above. I’m at a loss as to why they think that’s appropriate. Though, I suppose if you wanted to get deep about it, isn’t cutting yourself and your writing off from new experiences and the rest of the online writing community basically just doing what that photo shows?)