Writing this from my childhood house, surrounded by the kind of unfiltered family closeness that makes everything else feel like performance. I’ve completed the rough edit of Omnichannel Hearts and decided to retreat here while the manuscript settles before final publication preparations.
The irony isn’t lost on me: in the garden beside the house 5G now signals confidently, and I’m editing novel chapters from my smartphone screen while sitting under the old apple tree. Technology and tradition exist side by side here without the tension I expected.
Being home provides the perfect counterpoint to the digital intimacy I’ve been exploring in the novel. Here, connection happens through shared meals prepared without consulting recipe apps, conversations that unfold without notification interruptions, and physical presence that doesn’t require documentation. My phone stays silent for hours while we tend the garden or sort through old photographs that exist only in physical form.
Yet I notice how fundamentally I’ve changed. I instinctively reach for my device to capture moments before remembering they’re worth experiencing without sharing. My grandmother tells the same stories I heard as a child, but now I’m mentally cataloging them as potential character backstories. The boundary between life and material has blurred completely.
The contrast between provincial offline reality and metropolitan online existence has clarified the novel’s final chapters. Maya’s character arc needed this grounding — the realization that digital connection enhances rather than replaces physical intimacy when balanced properly. David’s VR relationships gain depth when contrasted with his grandmother’s analog wisdom. Sarah discovers that her authentic self emerges not from choosing between online and offline personas, but from integrating them honestly.
My mother still makes the same soup that defined childhood comfort, but now we FaceTime with relatives across time zones while eating it. My father reads physical newspapers while checking weather apps. The generational blend creates its own kind of omnichannel experience — wisdom transmitted through traditional methods, enhanced by contemporary tools.
The nail art station I’ve set up in the summer kitchen attracts neighborhood women who share relationship stories while I paint their nails. Their accounts of maintaining marriages through pandemic lockdowns, connecting with grandchildren through video calls, navigating social media drama while preserving real friendships — all feed the novel’s emotional authenticity.
This editing retreat has revealed what Omnichannel Hearts truly explores: not the replacement of genuine connection with digital alternatives, but the expansion of intimacy across available channels. The characters learn to love fully through whatever medium allows connection while recognizing that some experiences require physical presence.
The apple tree provides steady WiFi and steady wisdom simultaneously. Progress doesn’t require abandoning roots; it requires deepening them while extending reach. My characters arrive at similar conclusions through their digital journeys.
Next month brings the final publication push, but for now I’m content to exist in this hybrid space where past and future collaborate rather than compete. The novel feels complete in ways that pure revision couldn’t achieve — it needed this anchoring in analog warmth to balance its digital complexity.
Posted from home, where every innovation finds its proper context.
— Writer Julia Zolotova
