The Write Thing to Do

There’s a little bit of an ironic twist to my pact to SAFTC (Stay Away From The Computer) and spend the time greasing my creative wheel by writing. 

Awhile back, if I was to have a pen in hand, I could write faster than the words would come out of my head.  It was like there was a direct line – a hose filled with ink from my heart more often than my brain – directly on to the paper. 

With plans for a family history, I have a lot of writing to do.  About 10 years ago I admitted to myself that I was never, ever going to go back and type up the pages that I had written.  They’re hard to read for one thing as the words spew forth at warp speed at times, and also – that was going to make it double the time and at the rate I’m going I’ll be 113 before I get to Chapter 4.

"I need me one of those ‘laptop’ things I professed; and then I can write!”  So I invested in one back when desktops were still generally the computer of choice. I found that my thoughts were so trained to come through a pen that I couldn’t co-ordinate them and my fingers and a keyboard. There was no flow. It was awkward. I was forever back spacing to correct the spelling. I’d lose my thought – it was like I was continually putting the brakes on. I didn’t write.  I wore it out, but I didn’t write. I got another laptop – a little sleeker this time. Again … no writing magically happened.

Then along came those tiny little netbooks. “I need me one of those netbooks”, I determined: “and then I can write”.  Because really, that five inches smaller made it SO much handier than that big wieldy laptop. I’d be much better with this cute little thing – it’s almost like a book itself, surely we would become good friends and we’d write together. Didn’t happen. I jumped the gun on that one. It is sluggish and the keyboard was hard to get used to. Haven’t written a page on it. Now, I’m on to my third laptop and I still haven’t written a single page of the proposed Family History.

I was very excited with my New Found Focus and writing time.  “That’s what I’ll do!” I proclaimed: “I will seriously focus on that task – an hour every day.”

And then it hit me. I cannot turn the computer on during that time.  I have two issues with that. #1 I’m back to having to transcribe what I have written.  #2 Now I have retrained myself to write with keystrokes. I am finding the pen now to be an awkward tool and I basically have to re-train myself. 

I am officially in a quanundrum. I've got to do some thinking on it.