Writing Tools

As a young man, I imagined that the last quarter of my life would be taken up with a little travel, good eating, walking my dog along the seashore and taking my grandkids to the ballpark. But now, at 61, things look a little different. After 30 years at The Poynter Institute, when I peer down that road yonder, I see many more years of productive work -- with a little golf thrown in.

I have always been guided by role models, personal champions whose lives blazed a trail in work and in life. If I imagine doing satisfying and interesting work into my 80s, perhaps into my 90s, I need only follow in the footsteps of three pioneers: Les Paul, Shirley Clark and Gene Patterson. ...

I guess you could say that I'm a late adopter. I have no Facebook account. I remain skeptical of PowerPoint presentations. My favorite technology is still the book, although my new iPhone is catching up fast. I admit it: I still write the occasional essay in longhand.

But something nifty (an old school word) happened a few months ago when my friends at Poynter Online uploaded the podcasts for my book "Writing Tools" on iTunes U. Before you know it, those little audio essays were number 1 with a bullet, with close to a million downloads. O, Brave New World ...

Now filled with confidence -- and with the help of my much younger Poynter colleagues -- I set off on my first Twitter experience. It did not take long to learn the basics, and I now have about 170 "followers" (I prefer "acolytes") and a couple dozen tweets under my feathers.

My primary motivation was not to grow an audience or to keep up with the latest, but to pursue my interest in short forms of writing.