The difference between face-to-face conversation and any other medium of communication is simple: No distractions are permitted.

I don't tweet. I prefer face-to-face communication and sometimes Instagram.

Thanks to postmodernism, we tend to see all facts as meaningless trivia, no one more vital than any other. Yet this disregard for facts qua facts is intellectually crippling. Facts are the raw material of thought, and the knowledge of significant facts makes sophisticated thought possible.

There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research.

There was no difference between my characters and the life my readers were going to have to face.

Worst case scenario, nothing I do has any value or purpose, but if I can make someone laugh, I'm at least as useful as a piece of quiche would be.