Sometimes I wonder what kind of writer I’d be in the time of typewriters and legal pads. I know that back when I had my first job those IBM Selectrics were a hurdle I had to jump with every page!
I write.
I write every day. I write novels. I write short stories. I write blog posts. I write freelance assignments, business proposals and more. I honestly don’t think I’d be able to accomplish the quantity —let alone quality— of my text output back in the days of typewriters, white out corrective liquid and carbon paper. In the dark ages of the pre-Apple Computer era, I chunked, clunked and pecked away at typewriter keyboards, lacking both precision and speed. The computer screen transformed my typing and enables me to write a lot and fast!
What kind of writer would I have been fifty or sixty or seventy years ago?
I honestly don’t know.
Although I’m not a stranger to writing long hand —I often scribble early drafts— my process for refining text relies on copying & pasting, moving words around and reworking (reworking, reworking, reworking) text many times. This is relatively easy with Word or another word processing program on a computer and it was a struggle in and earlier era. The progression from handwritten draft, to typewritten draft, to copy shop and then on to repeated editing, was slow and infuriating.
What kind of writer would I have been 100 years ago?
Frustrated? Perhaps…. Or maybe I’d write haikus?
What about you? What kind of pre-computer writer would you be?
I’m not sure I could have done it either!
Glad I’m not alone!
I really have to admire some of the longhand writers and all those early/mid 20th century greats pounding away on manual typewriters.
And typing on a computer keyboard is the best!
I remember my fingers slipping between the keys of my dad’s old manual typewriter. He could write on it. He loved writing on it —until I introduced him to computers.
I really dislike writing by hand. I’m left-handed and it’s not the prettiest handwriting ever. Plus when you’re left-handed your hand drags across the page as you write and gets lead or ink all over it. Nope, not a fan of writing by hand. Typing is soooo much faster.
I have been a proponent of keyboard typing for years. I used to do long hand and I learned to type on an electric typewriter. I wouldn’t trade the world of my computer for those days.
Even now when I stumble and falter when I write out the simplest of things long hand. The classes i have taken over the past year have been filled with notes I take on my computer or iPad. I can do so much more with note apps and a keyboard than I can even consider without them. And when I need to copy stuff on a white board or a chalk board, the camera on my iPad works so much better than trying to draw things out by hand.
You’re right about all the other writer-friendly applications of technology. Taking photos as a way of taking notes, etc. Computers have changed so many things about the way we research, outline, edit and actually write.
I was such a lousy typist on a typewriter and I’m so much better now… I really do love my computer!