My friend Sarah A. Hoyt has been blogging about the craft of writing as well as changes to the traditional models of publishing that are on the horizon. Yesterday she wrote "In the Future we're all Ducks" (http://accordingtohoyt.com/2011/10/05/in-the-future-we%E2%80%99re-all-ducks/) referring to the manner in which Disney's Donald Duck character seems to go from job to job in each episode - one time he's a beautician, next time he's a janitor in Uncle Scrooge's bank. The fact that Donald seems to switch between jobs doesn't seem to matter to him. [By the way, Sarah, my wife reminds me that despite this seeming lack of care, Donald is never truly satisfied!]
Sarah goes on to talk about how we can learn from Donald and improve our skill set by learning things we would not previously consider. For myself, I always thought I'd be a scientist or a surgeon (or a jet pilot, but I was asthmatic and didn't have the eyesight). Computers other than the huge government behemoths didn't exist, but as they were developed, I considered that I might be a programmer. Little did I think I would become all three - I am a scientist who performs surgical procedures in the lab as needed, and I program most of my own analyses. I never really thought that much about being a writer, but here I am working on both nonfiction and fiction for the SF market.
But back to Sarah's post, I argued that we are not Ducks, but Lab Rats. I started to lay out my logic, and Sarah said I should just write it all down and guest-blog it for her. Incidentally it also gives her a bit of a breather since she has been out of town for two weeks and needs to get some things done before getting back to writing.So head on over at According to Hoyt, and read my guest blog - Not Ducks, but Lab Rats (http://accordingtohoyt.com/2011/10/06/not-ducks-but-lab-rats/). It's a story of behavior and flexibility, and the sad consequences of lacking behavioral flexibility.
Enjoy!
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