WriterByNature.com

As the opportunities to access the Internet grow, so do the options for communicating for business and pleasure.

I prefer to spend my time in the woods, so that makes me one of the few people I know who limit computer time. My goal is to find the most productive online communities. Lately, I’ve been overwhelmed. I signed up for a lot of these groups. I’m still in the lurking stage.

I participated actively in the first groups I joined over a year ago. After a while, it started feeling like work. So I took a long break.

In order to benefit from online networking, I need to be engaged in the information I am sharing. My particular interest in the natural world involves lots of field time. In the computer world, things move fast. You cannot rush the natural world into revealing its secrets. That has been one of my major challenges in trying to build a writing business while staying true to my passion.

It’s a violation of blogging rules of etiquette to leave readers for weeks on end with no new content. It would be blogging suicide if I were to abandon my computer to take a three-week winter survival course at Hawk Circle. I’ve wanted to do this since I first visited the school in 2005.

Taking this course would be professional business development, which is essential to providing readers with fresh, relevant content.

As you read this, shaking your head, wondering why I don’t take my laptop with me, remember that paper and pencil (pens freeze) are less intrusive than a laptop when it comes to living without electricity or running water.

If I take this winter survival course, I’ll be busy learning new skills. I don’t want to struggle with finding a wireless signal or worrying about recharging a battery while learning new ways to read an animal track.

The two worlds are simply not compatible. I have to choose one at a time. I liked it better years ago when I could live in the woods for weeks at a time and no one expected me to have my own computer or cell phone.

But back then I had to juggle jobs that required me to work on the employer’s site in order to have a stretch of woods time. The difference now is that I have to schedule woods time around compute-related work.

What about the One Laptop Per Child computers? I’d have to learn a new operating system, since these computers don’t use Windows. Even if I did learn that, online access is at a dial-up speed and the monitors are black and white. I don’t have a kid brain and this program does not include technical support. So here again, I have to choose where I’m going to focus.

As you read this, I may well be hundreds of miles away from my computer. Or I may be watching the birds and squirrels out my window.

My mission is to continue to find the balance that will give me the best of both worlds.