Comments on: I started writing by hand

By: Creative Writing Guide

Creative Writing Guide — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:58:52 +0000

[...] I started writing by hand – Mystery of a Shrinking Violet – in the privacy of my bedroom, as a teenager, with funky colored pens. This involved lots of doodling as well … [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:04:58 +0000

Hi Barbara,

I also used to be an early crawler on paper. I especially favored crayons. Now the keyboard is my best friend and I write all day long every day.

Monika

By: Barbara W. Klaser

Barbara W. Klaser — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 04:10:33 +0000

Rhubarb, I consider “footnote” a four-letter word, no matter how you spell it. A few years after my school paper vigils I went on to do paste-up and layout of technical manuals (before I started writing them). Then it was permissible to use tape, correction fluid, X-Acto knives, rub-ons, blue pencils, and hot wax, as long as none of my manipulations showed up on the negative. Even then, a few little dots of red fluid at the printer’s cleaned it up. I’m relieved I don’t dream about the glare shining into my eyes from a light table. Computers are a blessing. So are digital cameras—I once worked in a photo-processing lab, and I still wonder what long term effects those chemicals had on me.

By: Rhubarb

Rhubarb — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:43:06 +0000

Do you remember typing papers that could not have errors that had been erased or whited out and re-typed? I still have nightmares.

I think best of all is a keyboard. It’s so much faster than pen on paper, that my fingers can keep up with my thoughts (not really, but faster than handwritten). By now, it’s a straight-through process, eyes and brain and fingers.

BTW You have been tagged with the “Habitual Meme.” See my journal entry for today. It was an interesting exercise to thing over my habits and try to decide what would be unusual from someone else’s point of view, since to me they seem eminently ordinary.

By: violetismycolor

violetismycolor — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 05:26:06 +0000

I remember the typewriter…in college it was my real nemesis. I had to type up all those papers and there were…let’s say…mistakes made. Caused problems. You get the picture.

By: Reenie

Reenie — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:09:48 +0000

This is a marvelous essay, Barbara. It spoke to me on so many levels â€“ Iâ€™ll address one. Do not (I repeat) do not get new furniture. Well, Iâ€™ll allow you to get new furniture, but incorporate it with the old.

As I read your essay, the descriptions of furniture touched my heart most. That is probably because a lot of our furniture once belonged to someone else in our families. Iâ€™ve always been a greedy recipient. Itâ€™s made my home a living scrapbook of sorts. Just about every piece of furniture levitates a cherished memory. I suspect yours does too â€“ otherwise you couldnâ€™t have written so masterfully about it.

By: cas

cas — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:54:56 +0000

I remember them. My Mother bought me a used typewriter. of the same vintage. She got tired of me always using her new portable Smith-Corona – the one with tape covering all the letters and numbers.

By: Eric Mayer

Eric Mayer — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 04:40:07 +0000

There was something satisfying about the typewriter’s physical manifestation of one’s effort, the stately advance of the carriage, the encouraging ringing of the bell as the next “level” was reached. You could feel the keys hitting the platen through your fingertips, or so it seemed. I only recall my old Smith Corona manual portable, and it might be that was all I used up until I got my first computer about 1990. Yeah I was late. The only trouble with typewriters, they were unforgiving of non-typists like me.