The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group In Praise Of The Keyboard John Mackesy |
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Every writer should keep a journal, written in longhand, first thing in the morning - there's nothing like the feel of the pen on a fresh sheet of paper, says member John Mackesy. |
Yeah, right. It's the first day of my Professional Writing and Editing
course at TAFE, the first day of committing to the art of writing. Vivid
memories bubble up from the depths of my subconscious, memories of the time so
many years ago when I was pilloried for my poor handwriting, handwriting that
never improved past the small, spiky and barely legible.
At the time, I didn't really care about this seemingly trivial issue, but I'm
now left with the feeling that a degree of conditioning has occurred. Does one
disagree with one's teacher in the first hour and-a-half of one's foray into the
groves of academe? I felt I must, and proceeded to do so. Full credit to him for
conceding that there may be another way - '... it's a matter of
personal choice. Do
whatever works for you.'
Why this fixation on 'the pen' and its alleged facilitation of the writing
process? Could it be symptomatic of a lingering Luddite distrust for
modern writing technology, a lack of intimacy with that technology? Did our
forbears have an ancestral yearning to relive the satisfaction of making
cuneiform imprints
in the virginal texture of moist clay? Somehow I think not, no more than modern
Egyptians are moved to write in hieroglyphics.
It's the technology that's the key; unlike many would-be writers, I'm a
technofreak attempting
to reinvent myself as a writer, rather than a writer struggling to come to grips
with a hostile and mysterious technology. My techno past includes things like
the more thunderous variety of
aircraft engines, the more grandiose examples of industrial electronics and some
seriously challenging combinations of optics, chemistry and electronics.
Computers are easy (and best of all, cheap!)
From my point of view (and that of my fellow travellers), computer- based word
processing is an enabling technology; if it didn't exist, we wouldn't be
writing. Typing speed isn't an issue - I can't think any faster than I can type.
As I'm not a typist my income (or lack of it) is not related to how many words -
somebody else's words - per minute I can commit to paper or any other medium.
After all, was it not some noted writer - I'm damned if I can remember who -
that once said: 'After liquor, a word
processor is the greatest
aid a writer ever had.'
For better or for worse, this writer is going to write his
journal via computer-based
word processing techniques.
Early morning, that time commonly referred to as oh-dark-thirty. I'm seated at
the keyboard, waiting for the words to come, waiting for that defining moment of
literary inspiration, the moment that will prove that
I really am a writer after all.
I glance down at the keyboard;
'Star Key Windows 98', door prize won at a club event. Cheap and nasty, but
undeniably effective, a plastic construction of obscure Oriental origin. It's a
far cry from the high-quality IBM products
of my past, as typified by my old IBM XT keyboard, a device that eventually
succumbed to the effects of coffee spills, toast crumbs and cat hair. Following
complete disassembly (a cereal
bowl full of key caps is a disturbing sight), cleaning and reassembly
it looked and functioned like new, despite expressions of disbelief that it
would ever work again.
My fingers move over the keyboard. This the first entry in my New Journal, the
beginning of the next phase in my career as a writer. From some dark corner of
my psyche come the words: 'We're all intensely interested in the future, for that's where we're going to
spend the rest of our lives'
'Every writer should
keep a journal...'
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