I think many people have this sense that something about modern society - the screens, the noise, the traffic, the constant busyness - has approached a point where living in the world feels somewhat unhealthy.
I am guaranteeing you that if you see my byline on a story, it's going to be the cleanest story you've ever read.
I spent most of my youth in Montana, where there are long, cold winters, but Maine has the coldest winters you could imagine. Not only are they long, not only does it snow, but it gets really damp. It's a wet cold with a lot of wind.
I tend to be a fairly spirited person, but I've never hated anyone more than I hated Christian Longo after his trial, when I realized his guilt and that I had been partially duped.
There have always been hermits: people who want to get away from other humans. Literally, some of the first extant books and poems found in Mesopotamia and China mention people living alone in the woods. It's this primal fascination that exists across all cultures and all times.
In an odd sort of way, the computer and the Internet is the hermit's ideal form of communication. You don't have to see anyone. To send an email, you don't have to talk to anyone. You can just send it, and they'll read it on their own. The Internet has been really good for hermits.
Not to get too maudlin, but I think all mistakes are tests for one's mettle.
My advice for telling someone else's story is to try not to consciously bend the story in any particular direction - to listen with an open mind, to include the good with the bad, to attempt to quell one's biases and allow the person you're writing about to emerge as wholly as possible, warts and all.
In my writing, I try to combine all my favorite elements of journalism - accuracy, real characters that exist on this planet - with all my favorite elements of literature: a sense of flow, of propulsion, of wanting to read every sentence.
