WikiPedia. Yes, the writer's classroom, the writer's resource.

I am a professional graphic designer. I make stuff up. I have clients who send me tasks. They come this way:

"Jon, design us a brochure, four-pager, two sides, an eight and a half by eleven folded once, in full color, full bleeds with the object to sell widgets to the masses. We don't have any copy or photos, so good luck. Oh, by the way, we need it tomorrow. And while you're at it, design a logo for the company - International Widgets, LLC."

I read the email four or five times and then I make a new pot of dark roast. When I get back to the computer, I open Google and type in the search bar: 'Widgets.'

The first page number one item is usually WikiPedia's resource page on Widgets.

I read it thoroughly and within twenty minutes I have become a novice on the subject of Widgets. Then I go through the remainder of the first ten or twenty Google hits about Widgets and I am suddenly an intermediate scholar on the subject.

At that point I open Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign and begin my project. Usually I write my copy after I have some concept about how much text I will require. When I am at that point, I open an MS Word document and write something vague and boring about Widgets.

The process continues and soon I have what will suffice the next morning so the ad agency client can make the Widget manufacturer/distributor feel their money will be well invested.

Back to the subject.

I believe the internet was the reason God allowed the creation of the microchip. Once accomplished He/She allowed the creation of search engines. After that, He/She made it possible to give us WikiPedia and other resources. God works miracles all the time. In the cyber age the miracles are fabulous.

I am also a writer.

I write whatever I feel like writing. Currently, I have been laboring on 1) a fiction that has stumbled, and 2) my long, dark historical novel about a period in ancient Egypt. I have utilized the search engines for a quantum leap in my research. In the early 1990s I visited libraries, purchased books and took copious notes. Now I crawl through those libraries and texts using searches. Then I can archive the results or print the pages.

God is in the details.

In fiction it is wonderful to have these machines ready and willing. For instance, if I wanted to write a story about a man who gets stuck on a Greek Island because his ferry sank, I would jump to Google, Ask Jeeves, or whatever and literally tour those islands until I found the perfect site for the story.

Ah! Lesbos. The fabled isle of...

O.K. Max, a failed attorney who is recently divorced and nearly broke gets to Lesbos. His return ferry goes belly up beneath the Aegean Sea. The next boat is in three days.

He... wait! I don't know the ferry schedules from Lesbos to the mainland. OK... Google it.

There, I have the facts. Nobody will question the author's knowledge about that! Now, what little town is on Lesbos where the ferry docks? Ah. I found it.

Now, what is in that little town so my hero can bide his time while awaiting the next boat?

There! A taverna. He goes to the place for a meal and some Ouzo.

There he meets a woman and they click.

Wait! I need a name for her. Google Greek women's names.

Ah...Demetra. That rings!

So Max and Demetra do the deed later that night. They fall madly in love (she speaks broken English because her sister went to Cambridge on a scholarship before she returned to Lesbos and became a politician.) Max discovers that Demetra is strangely poetic. Demetra confesses one day on a secluded nude beach that she believe she is the reincarnated Sappho.

Max is beside himself with joy because secretly Max has always written poetry. They mesh well, until Max realizes he does not like Sappho very much. His poetry is free form and full of cacaphony. Demetra likes to write and recite soft, metric love poems and her verse begins to grate on Max's nervous system.

One night they fall into a great argument about iambic pentameter and Max packs and leaves. He steals a fishing skiff and rows to the mainland. Demetra commits suicide by drinking a stiff mix of vodka, retsina, drain clog remover and hemlock.

Well, I got everything I needed about Sappho (not much is available since they burned down the Alexandria Library!), Lesbos, hemlock poisons, Greek village foods, fishing vessels, and even pentameter from search engine results. Usually most of the first rankings were WikiPedia results, too.

I don't even need a library card anymore! I don't have to keep filling my tank with three dollar gasoline to go looking for such information! I am connected!

I am online to the World!

I Google, therefore I am!