Instant asynchrony

I've really been thinking about letter writing lately. Maybe it was writing holiday cards, or maybe it was listening too many times to "From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea)," a song in which the Decemberists keen "Mr. Postman, do you have a letter for me?" The Decemberists' tune brought back memories of listening to "Please Mr. Postman-" the version by the Carpenters my parents used to play when I was just a tater tot. I remember really connecting with that song, because when you're three years old, mail addressed in your name is a really big deal. I used to long along with Karen for someone to seal a message in an envelope, mark it with my name, and send it through mysterious channels to reach my front door. Magic. Slow motion conversations.

Now that I'm old enough to send and receive letters, I mostly use email. Sure, the delivery system is different (email has no yucky envelopes to lick) but letter delivery technology has a history of changing with the times- think back to the Pony Express (later replaced by the First Transcontinental Telegraph), or the pneumatic tubes that delivered mail twice daily in Paris. What interests me about the modern letter isn't just the technology used to deliver it, but the persistence of the letter through the dozens of way we now have to communicate.

Telephone, fax, mobile phone, SMS, chat room, message board, instant message, sites that allow users to share photos and video, blogging, online games, voice chat, and video chat. We have the technology to talk to each other across great distances face-to-face, real time, and to call each other anytime, anywhere. So why is so much of modern communication conducted as letters, albeit mailed electronically?

Email offers us instant asynchronous communication, and gives us the power to control the pace of our slow-motion conversations. Recipients can take as long as they want to reply to an email- hours, days, even weeks or months. But they also have the possibility to reply within seconds- which gives email superpowers that the guys running the Pony Express never dreamed of. I have written email to my husband while he is sitting in the same room with me. Why would I do that? The power of asynchronous communication is all about time- the summary of my research on feline nutrition may not be best communicated to my husband while he's battling the final board of his favorite video game. You might decide to email a colleague a few feet from your desk. Let my husband- and your colleague- get to your email when they have time to process it.

Asynchronous forms of conversation also leave a record- whether we're blogging, posting to a message board, or sending an email, it's pretty easy to re-read what we've written and how others have responded. The likelihood of finding a record of a conversation is in direct proportion to the asynchronism of the form of communication. I can pull up an email from 2004 with a few keystrokes. I can scroll back and re-read something a friend has written in an instant message window. Although it's certainly possible (and a little creepy) to record a telephone conversation, the content of a conversation isn't very searchable unless I keep written records correlating each conversation to its specific content.

The speed of interpersonal (and business) communication has an effect on our artistic expression. The epistolary narrative of Dracula was born in an era when people kept in touch by writing letters that took a long time to reach the recipient. Bob Newhart developed his famous stand-up routine (and later running TV gag) of one-ended phone conversations when it became possible to telephone people across incredible distances. The mobile phone has become a staple of modern action movies, to show the hero receiving critical information in the nick of time.

How is the instant asynchrony of the ubiquitous email affecting artistic expression?

Brandon Sanderson to write A Memory of Light

Today TOR announced that Brandon Sanderson will be writing the last book in Robert Jordan's epic fantasy Wheel of Time series. In an interview posted on WoT fan site Dragonmount.com, Sanderson talks about his "Characters first, everything else second" philosophy, tells us his favorite character and his favorite scenes in the series, and discusses why he thinks he was chosen to conclude the Wheel of Time. Both the announcement and the interview discuss notes Jordan left- some written, some audio recordings- with detailed explanations of how the book (and series) will end.

A Memory of Light is scheduled to be published in Fall 2009.