High-tech writing

I just came across the giddily seductive Levenger ad for a Circa notebook for multitaskers, and I was reaching with palsied hand toward my credit cards – the ultimate multipurpose notebook, with all kinds of formats and colors, for only $24! . . . when I realized that I really only have one task to multitask – unitask -- and I can accomplish it with a stack of cheap bond paper. Or an actual notebook from K-Mart, for 29 cents. I know in my heart that that simple fact will not keep me from buying the Circa notebook for multitaskers, or any number of other accessories that hold out the promise of making the business of writing easier. But in fact the last high-tech thing that actually improved my production was the cartridge-fueled fountain pen, which came out in the fifties, I think. And I stopped using them in the seventies, because they were too high-tech for my retrograde sensibilities. God put ink in bottles for a good reason. (But then He forgot why, which is true of many of His best accomplishments.) The last high-tech thing, you say I said? What about computers? Gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair. If I didn’t have computers to distract me, I might have written as many books as Robert Louis Stevenson, one god-damned inky page at a time! Calm down. You will find that missing adaptor. You will find one that really works, along with a spell-chequer. Some day there will be one that writes the story for you, and finds the right market, and produces reams of phony good reviews. Joe