I think about writing a lot. My writing. Other writers’ writings. And not just what we write, but how we write.
As a teen, I started writing in the only ways possible. At first that was longhand. Pen on notebook paper. Then my mother, always supportive of creative work, introduced me to the modern era and mechanization. It looked like this. That led to learning about carbon paper, whiteout, and a few other things that are now simply artifacts of that time.
Using that machine I wrote dozens of short stories and poems and my first novels. I sold some of the stories and published some of the poems.
The next step was an IBM Selectric. It was amazing. You could make corrections, if you caught them in time, on the fly. The carbons still sucked, but you could have the typewriter retype the most recent page, so no big deal.
When I started working with computers (for writing… I had a short stint writing FORTRAN IV programs), around 1979. the idea of being able to make corrections and then reprint the damn manuscript (not retype it) was an amazing relief.
I was hooked.
Recently, I found myself dissatisfied with the nature (quality, depth…) of my fiction. I’ve been selling stories to anthologies and magazines (a short crime story is coming out in Crimeucopia’s anthology “Can You Dig It?” soon) and writing novels. So, it wasn’t that I thought my writing was getting worse, but it felt stale.
I’m an experimenter and I tried a number of things (short of asking AI for help). I read a lot of craft books and author bios. I couldn’t get my head around it.
And then I changed my keyboard. I had a Bluetooth keyboard with a nice feel, but it and my computer started having conversation on the side that got longer and longer. While they chatted, I would type into the abyss. (Actually I suspect it was The Abyss. Yes, that one.)
I am writing a novel that I’m excited about. Losing my genius prose wasn’t acceptable. So I ordered a new keyboard. One with… gasp—a cord. I was regressing. But that was offset by the new keyboard being ergonomic. The keys are angled to prevent tunnel carpel and all that…
Immediately, I was delighted to learn that being attached by a cord solved the lost typing problem. Unfortunately, I also learned that my fingers, which have adapted easily and happily to dozens of keyboards over the years, didn’t like where the keys were (are) located. So some rather simple sentences came out rather strange.
I tend to enjoy the strange, but not the frustration of typing something and having the process turn it into something else. So I ordered a keyboard with another layout and it was worse. Ugh!
Meantime, I found myself thinking on paper again. Frustrated with the computer, I had started writing parts out longhand and enjoying it.
I’ve always done that to some extent. When I worked at a magazine, back in the neolithic age, we’d often brainstorm headlines and subheads on yellow legal pads. Leads too. (This was so long ago that “legal pads” were actually legal sized, not just yellow.) It was convenient and forced you to think differently. As I adjusted to my new keyboard, I found that I was enjoying writing longhand. Enjoying both the process and the results.
I’ve watched a few videos on journaling and on writing fiction longhand and decided that doing it that was is always hard. Any reorganization involves cutting and pasting physically. It involves scratching out the crap. It is messy and sometimes hard to read. And when you are done, it still has to be typed.
But it is good!
I’m playing with my process: Journaling story thoughts and process thoughts. I printed out the 40k word WIP I had written in the computer (mostly) and I’m going through it, filling in the holes with handwritten pages. Editing the hard copy, adding new chapters longhand. I won’t enter any of the corrections until the draft is done. I am certain that my next stories, regardless of length, will begin life birthed by my fountain pen, not my fingertips on computer keys.
I am analyzing many of the whys and wherefores and intend to write about them later. At this point, I’m just delighted to report on an experiment in regression that is proving to re-invigorate my joy of writing fiction.
Meantime, my fingers are beginning to find the keys on the ergonomic keyboard, although considering the number of typing mistakes I still make, I’m considering ordering a straightforward, finger-crippling conventional keyboard that puts the keys where centuries of typing has taught my fingers they should be.