Had an opportunity to introduce the 7-year old to a piece of ancient
technology the other day. A typewriter. Manual, of course. For fun, we started
writing a story about vampires. Had to xxx out a few words when we went wrong,
but it generally went quite well. In fact, we had a great time. The comforting
clatter of the letters as they hit the page, the joyful bing at the end of each
line, and the simple fact that you had to apply a bit of force with each
stroke. Not touch-typing exactly... you certainly get some exercise!
The mechanics of
writing have changed beyond recognition in the last couple of decades. And with
this the creative process. It used to be that you had to think through things
very carefully before committing anything to paper. Otherwise you ended up
having to do tedious and time-consuming rewrites of page after page. There was
of course the original cut-and-paste, involving scissors and glue, but this was
a sticky exercise and in the end you had to retype everything anyway. Writing
may have been much slower in that era, but after numerous revisions the final
product tended to be well crafted.
I am old enough to
remember the transition to WYSIWYG, when computers were first able to show the
writing on the screen exactly as it would appear on the printed paper. What a
breakthrough! At the same time, this was the first subtle step away from the
focus on the words. You suddenly had to worry about the font, the layout and
other aspects that had been the typesetter's job in the olden days. This
speeded up the step from writing to publishing enormously, and the ability to
move swathes of text around at will certainly removed some of the agony of the
creative process. No more messy rewrites. Of course, you had to remember to do
regular backups on those funny floppy disks. I guess I still have some of those
in a drawer somewhere... Not sure what to do with them now.
Fast forward another
20 years or so and you find yourself in the brave new era of the internet,
facebook, twitter and mobile texting. The way we communicate has changed
completely. Instant gratification is the order of the day. If I can't have it immediately,
then I can't be bothered. Carefully crafted hand-written letters have been
replaced by emails, often without either proper greeting or polite goodbye.
Grammar is old hat and who can be bothered to edit? It’s all gone in an
instant, anyway. The next status update is more important.
This is liberating and
frustrating at the same time. Anyone can write and publish just about anything,
and people can access it wherever they may be in the world more or less
immediately. Great! But what happened to the craft? Proper story telling? Once
you get used to life in 140 characters or less, why would you bother with War
and Peace? I know I should not complain because I find much of this
entertaining, but at the same time...
The weeds in the
internet garden are growing rapidly and it is getting harder for the more
interesting and unique plants to get any daylight. I’m not suggesting it is
time for censorship or even selective weeding. It should be up to the
individual to carry out the proper quality control. The problem is that this
does not seem to happen at the moment. Hopefully, normal services will be
resumed before too long.
In the meantime, you
can have a laugh at my expense and perhaps the hypocrisy of this rant. My “epic
masterpiece” Professor Kompressor is free from Amazon until 8 April. The book
is aimed at kids of all ages and I think it is quite funny. Well worth the
current price, at least!
Here's the download link:
Have to stop now, because I’ve been told to get back to work on the
vampire story. On the typewriter, of course. How else would we do it?
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