When I was little, my mom worked as an illustrator by day and an oil painter by night. The illustrations she did for a company called Northwestern Graphics paid the bills, and the oil paintings were her passion. It occurred to me, or rather, it occurred to my husband who pointed it out to me, that I am rapidly establishing a life for myself that is very similar to my mom’s before me. I do business writing by day, and after the kids are in bed, I work on my novel.
The thing that struck me today is that my mom fell on really hard times when computers came along with their graphic programs and killed the professional (free hand) illustrator. She had to go back to school to learn the software programs that now do in seconds what she once did all day every day.
It seems inconceivable to me now, but what if the written word is dying? I have friends who teach grade school who say they regularly have to explain to kids that “U R” is not the same as “you are.” While it seems crazy that some day all memos, white papers and promotional material might be written in texting short-hand, perhaps I’m being optimistic. If I am, I better make myself into a prized novelist right quick, because my day job won’t last long.
I guess the good news is that a lot of the business writing I do is for websites. Web content should be around for a while. And people of my generation will still be running things for at least a few more decades, and we mostly still like complete sentences. Mostly. I guess I’m just feeling curious about what the future has in store. Only time will tell, I suppose.
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