Turning Forward the Clock

Hi Writers,
You may or may not realize that Writer's Digest has been around for a long, long time—nearly 90 years, in fact. One of my favorite things to do here is peruse our archives. And I nearly always find fascinating stuff, such as an essay on writing by H.G. Wells, or an article touting the young upstart F. Scott Fitzgerald.

As I'm responsible for finding ways to integrate our historic magazine into the digital realm, I've been spending a lot of time lately, not only reading industry news, but just thinking about our changing world and what this all means to writers.

I could send you to dozens of news reports and analyses about magazines moving to the Internet at a furious pace. But I'm sure you've read plenty of these on your own and don't need me to point them out to you.

What I would like to propose to you is this creative exercise:

Think about what our famous writers of centuries past would be doing in the year 2007.

Would Shakespeare be hosting a poetry forum? Would Mary Shelley be making slasher films? How about good old Lord Byron—what the heck would he be doing with himself? Writing for the soaps, perhaps?

Let your imagination run wild. Go ahead and post here in the comments section. And I'll publish my favorite responses in the December issue of Writer's Digest.

Keep Writing,
Maria

p.s. Update on my last post: unfortunately my dastardly scheme to make Cincinnati the worldwide hub of publishing has been thwarted, as lots of midwest editors have admitted they like to nap, too.