Friday, August 28, 2009

HOW DO YOU WRITE?

What leads you down this path? When does the desire to write start?

For me it was walking into a first grade classroom smelling of crayons and books. We started writing with those fat red pencils.

Remember how thirilling it was to move to skinny pencils? It hit me then. I wanted to be a writer. That first 'blue book', reports for class and being allowed to use ink, fed the urge, but my big loopy script took too many pages.

My first day in high school typing class was a dream. I ran from the bus, dashed through the house to my room, and pulled the typewriter case out of my closet. Finally! With a joy that should have been reserved for things that really mattered, I hugged that Royal portable and breathed in the scent of ink! Now! Now I could write.

Sadly, my skills on the manual typewriter were not good. I fell in love with the electric typewriters in class. It took years, but when I started teaching, I purchased an electric portable. And then demands on my time, preparing for classes took all my typing efforts. My dream of writing looked a little dimmer...but I held on.

My home economics classes in middle school morfed into career explorations classes...gulp. But the pain eased when a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer appeared in my career class. Disappointment in this boxy machine soon turned to excitement when Apple II E computers arrived. Hope stirred. And then the grand machine, the Apple II GS arrived.

This was it! This cute little computer with the tiny keyboard was my dream machine. It was so much more aesthetically pleasing than the previous computers. My excitement grew.

So, I retyped my first manuscript over again to the Apple II GS and saved it to a five inch floppy disk. [named it 'test' so my ten and twelve yr. old sons wouldn't look] My heart sang. I was on my way.

Then the Tandy 1000 arrived. WOW! The Tandy computer was faster, had fewer quirks. My first PC...I loved it! [guilty feelings for cheating on my lovely II GS sitting at home...] So, once again, come summer break, I retyped my manuscript into a new format. It was tedious, but I was writing. And I added a few pages each time I switched machines.

Much has changed since I retyped that one manuscript over and over, again. Many computers have come and gone in our house. I've toyed with the Alpha Smart, a PDA with keyboard, and laptop computers. Each time I discover new technology, I push forward a few more pages, a few more words, even a few more finished manuscripts...[thirteen now]

What about you? How do you write? Do you stick to longhand to create your masterpieces? Do you use a typewriter? A word processor? A computer?

Share your writing voyage with us...and happy writing.

11 comments:

Sandy Cody said...

You knew your destiny way before I knew mine. I loved books as a child, but it never occurred to me that they were written by mere mortals. I was well into my adult years before I started to write. So glad I finally did though. Wouldn't miss this trip for the world.

Jane Myers Perrine said...

This brought back such memories--our first computer was a TI which backed up using an audio tape! Then Apples and now PCs, each one of them such an imporvement on the last! Thank goodness we have them. I can't imagine writing by longhand or on a typewriter, even eelctric. Those authors of the past were really dedicated!

Loretta C. Rogers said...

Imagine the long hours of sitting in front of a fire place on a cold wintery night with nothing but a candle for light as you sit scribbling your thoughts with a quill pen and paper. Oh, that's not for me. I find that sitting at my desktop computer and gazing out at the creek in my backyard works best for me. I've tried the Alphasmart and found I wasn't very productive. Sitting in a coffee shop or a public library with a laptop doesn't work for me either. I'm to easily distracted. Give me my computer, my office and absolute quiet (no music) and I can churn out some pages.

www.loretttacrogersbooks.com

Carol Hutchens said...

I wouldn't either, Sandy, even with the hard work. Thanks for posting.

Carol Hutchens said...

You are so right, Jane. We have to admire their hard work. And still, they churned out the books...

Carol Hutchens said...

You make me shiver, Loretta! Sounds like torture, doesn't it. I agree on the lack of noise, but I get more pages with a laptop than the desk...
Thanks for dropping by...

Kathye Quick said...

Just catching up.

I can't imagine writing long hand or on a typewriter. I make too may spelling errors as all my friends know.

I need to watch TV while I write. Don't know why. I've tried quiet and nothng comes!

LaVerne St. George said...

When I lived in Michigan, I founf that I could really productive on my laptop while commuting by train to my day job. Alas, no commuting now, but I do well on my desktop computer with some background noise--cicadas, wind blowing, music without words--but no TV, no humans communicating. I'm trying to make that happen on the page!

Sierra Donovan said...

Carol,

Oh, I remember the days when I thought I'd never leave longhand behind! Typing (or REtyping) was strictly for revising. Then the computer came along, and made editing so much easier. But I thought I'd never be able to type first draft onto those cold, hard keys.

Eventually, I got over it. Now it's easy for me to spill my thoughts directly onto a keyboard. But I always try to keep a steno pad within reach around the house, and one of those pocket-size notepads in my purse, for when ideas strike at unexpected moments.

And when I sit down for the express purpose of writing, I much prefer to have it quiet!

Elisabeth Rose said...

I have an Alphasmart but about a year ago I gave it to my dear old Dad--now 87 and powering along. He wakes early and writes about his early life and the family. Like many elderly people he feels he needs to get as much family history down as he can.

He always wrote in his lovely looping longhand and would give me the pages to type and print for distribution to the grnadchildren. He thinks Alphie is a marvel. He can delete and shift and add to his heart's content.

Carol Hutchens said...

Kathy, LaVerne, Sierra and Elisabeth, thanks for adding your experiences.

Isn't it fun to learn we're all so 'alike' and yet so different in our approach to writing...just as we are in life...

So...there's no right or wrong way. No easy path. No excuse for not getting the words down...Time to start on that story swirling in your head!!!!!