My Qrazy Qwerty Quests
There's nostalgia for a writer having survived the typewriter jungle. First the heavy hunt-and-peck pounding of metal keys on the non-electrics, muddling amok setting margins and tabs, blindly learning the keyboard in fear of making a mistake or booby-trapping a finger.
And boy, did I goof plenty, mending errors with the painted precision of liquid Wite-Out, blowing it dry and waiting to resume my alphabet fury, or the careful aligning of correction tape, anything to avoid yanking out the whole works and winding up from scratch.
In junior high, I'd pedal to the Navy housing library, a pack of typing paper somehow clamped down in the basket with school work and stories. The lone manual model awaited with aura aglow, sitting royally on its throne. Somehow always available, no line waiting, I'd scoot in and the delightful yet agonizing tap dance would begin.
Luckily in 1980/81, my stepdad bought my mother an electric version; mellow yellow with a hum as smooth as its softer-touch keys. I'm grateful for the upgrade, especially since we moved across Orlando far from the land of library. With this new "technology," we still needed the old school correction tools, now adding a cool, circular eraser wearing a gladiator brush to the collection.
The sole reason Mom got the contraption was to crank up her mad skills when she re-entered the job force. As a teen, I was honored when she asked for my humble, hand-scrawled story booklets for practice; it like offering paper nectar to the Greek typing gods.
As Mom got her zip back, a few of my stories shone with a professional glean, but better still, it meant she recognized my passionate hobby, and in turn, acknowledged that the writer in me existed! Her hand in these literary purses make them all the more precious today. I wish she could've seen the millennial steppingstones that made my dreams come true.
I'm almost ashamed to say I nearly took over Mom's machine in high school, {and beyond} keeping it on my bedroom desk-- where ironically, she sat transforming my work as I perched on my bed. So she must've approved the takeover.
During my turn at the keys, as I voluntarily polished schoolwork to the next level, the perfectionist in me awoke, spinning with OCD. The hard work paid off, but in a way, it also became a weapon for self-competition, especially for a TV script scene in journalism.
When Mr. Jones wrote, "Be neater please!" on my sloppy handwritten character chart, it irked me.
Miffed, I muttered, "Well, I'll show him" and I did, as well as myself-- by painstakingly tapping out tricky pages (and re-dos) of camera directions mingling with dialogue and action.
Hello A+ and Galaxy O'Jordan, who I created for the role and then pulled forward in 2014 to star in my spy romance, Behind Frenemy Lines.
It was on Mom's sunflower set that my writing emerged and matured. At 19 or 20, I saw Romancing the Stone's fictitious writer [Kathleen Turner] typing as she thought out loud. An epiphany hit:
So I stopped scribbling and began typing as I went. (Also a great remedy for ink stains and hand cramps!)
But how daunting staring at the blank scroll and extracting words deep inside my muse's soul. There were lots of false starts and balled up paper, but it became a second nature habit amazingly fast. Now with the ease of a computer, it's how I write books today!
(along with idea journals, messy envelope jotting, and Post It notes.)
At 21, I banged out my first manuscript --and got my first rejection! "No" after "no," I persevered, licking my wounds and manila mailers as I sent it off to every YA market I could find. Shortly after, I married a Navy man and moved away, but thanks to forwarding addresses, I kept up the quest briefly before taking a break.
Two years as a newlywed, Sears finally granted us our first credit card in '88, and our pioneer purchase was----an electric typewriter!
It was another thrill in feeling like a real writer. Gray and compact, the boxy plastic model was quieter and lighter than my mother's. It fit fabulously in its fold-up case, complete with a handle, perfect for portability and setting up on our kitchen table.
Amid various jobs, I continued flinging off stories, gaining more rejections under my belt. but I kept my little gems. They shined just for me--until 2018, when I dusted off my folder and revised and lengthened the fantasy tale, Parlor Game which appears in my time-twisting book, The Epochracy Files.
A few years later, I revised and lengthened it and now shines on its own with a beautiful cover.
Punching my timecard along with the keys, I paid my dues. The typewriter tribulations make computer use even sweeter--but it was an acquired taste. Somehow, I skipped the era of word processors and leapt into the early 90s windowless world of DOS. But reveling in the rewards of computer ease wasn't easy. The deliciousness had to marinate, first heaving myself over frustrating hurdles. Every new technology is a hair-pulling innovation, testing marriages and catapulting cerebral levels, finally squeezing binary brain juice into a cup. Once mastered, we can drink and soak it all in!
Thankfully, the QWERTY keyboard survived the metamorphosis, even if the # number/pound sign changed its name and became a demanding little diva.
But isn't technology a sort of Schrodinger's cat, a yin and yang of old and new mixed with love and hate? It cannot exist without the other. Yet while basking in appreciation and relief of the newfangled conveniences, a faded part of me still yearns for yesteryear.
When I dig up old stories and essays from my dresser drawer, I'm amazed at how well the typing appears. Except for the bad habit of riding too long on bald ink ribbons, there's hardly any typos.
Remarkable! I know I was far from perfect. In fact, typing classes were torturous Mount Everests! As my own worst critic, even I'm impressed when I examine my work, making the extra effort worth it. But I'm baffled. How was this possible?
Was survival mode stringing typers through the time tunnel? Did not having the safety net of a delete button, an infinite paperless screen, and the ease of 'cut and paste' scare us skillful? Did knowing we pretty much had one shot to get it right force us to walk the tightrope without looking down? Or aghast-- did all those dreadful typing drills actually pay off? (Shhh! Don't tell the teachers.)
My refreshed futuristic time capsule/diary mystery, Chronicle of the Century was one of the original booklets my mother typed back then called The Diary of Janet Marsh. Taking place in a peculiar, troubled world of 2078, a school assembly cracks open a crate from a century past. As the principals pull out a few trinkets, an ancient clunky typewriter is among them. I was happy to conjure up the secret longing in my heart with this passage. I think Principal Rehtom says it best:
Did you travel through the typewriter time machine too? Do you hold a fondness for these old word makers?
And boy, did I goof plenty, mending errors with the painted precision of liquid Wite-Out, blowing it dry and waiting to resume my alphabet fury, or the careful aligning of correction tape, anything to avoid yanking out the whole works and winding up from scratch.
In junior high, I'd pedal to the Navy housing library, a pack of typing paper somehow clamped down in the basket with school work and stories. The lone manual model awaited with aura aglow, sitting royally on its throne. Somehow always available, no line waiting, I'd scoot in and the delightful yet agonizing tap dance would begin.
Luckily in 1980/81, my stepdad bought my mother an electric version; mellow yellow with a hum as smooth as its softer-touch keys. I'm grateful for the upgrade, especially since we moved across Orlando far from the land of library. With this new "technology," we still needed the old school correction tools, now adding a cool, circular eraser wearing a gladiator brush to the collection.
The sole reason Mom got the contraption was to crank up her mad skills when she re-entered the job force. As a teen, I was honored when she asked for my humble, hand-scrawled story booklets for practice; it like offering paper nectar to the Greek typing gods.
As Mom got her zip back, a few of my stories shone with a professional glean, but better still, it meant she recognized my passionate hobby, and in turn, acknowledged that the writer in me existed! Her hand in these literary purses make them all the more precious today. I wish she could've seen the millennial steppingstones that made my dreams come true.
I'm almost ashamed to say I nearly took over Mom's machine in high school, {and beyond} keeping it on my bedroom desk-- where ironically, she sat transforming my work as I perched on my bed. So she must've approved the takeover.
During my turn at the keys, as I voluntarily polished schoolwork to the next level, the perfectionist in me awoke, spinning with OCD. The hard work paid off, but in a way, it also became a weapon for self-competition, especially for a TV script scene in journalism.
When Mr. Jones wrote, "Be neater please!" on my sloppy handwritten character chart, it irked me.
Miffed, I muttered, "Well, I'll show him" and I did, as well as myself-- by painstakingly tapping out tricky pages (and re-dos) of camera directions mingling with dialogue and action.
Hello A+ and Galaxy O'Jordan, who I created for the role and then pulled forward in 2014 to star in my spy romance, Behind Frenemy Lines.
It was on Mom's sunflower set that my writing emerged and matured. At 19 or 20, I saw Romancing the Stone's fictitious writer [Kathleen Turner] typing as she thought out loud. An epiphany hit:
That's what real writers do!
So I stopped scribbling and began typing as I went. (Also a great remedy for ink stains and hand cramps!)
But how daunting staring at the blank scroll and extracting words deep inside my muse's soul. There were lots of false starts and balled up paper, but it became a second nature habit amazingly fast. Now with the ease of a computer, it's how I write books today!
(along with idea journals, messy envelope jotting, and Post It notes.)
At 21, I banged out my first manuscript --and got my first rejection! "No" after "no," I persevered, licking my wounds and manila mailers as I sent it off to every YA market I could find. Shortly after, I married a Navy man and moved away, but thanks to forwarding addresses, I kept up the quest briefly before taking a break.
Two years as a newlywed, Sears finally granted us our first credit card in '88, and our pioneer purchase was----an electric typewriter!
It was another thrill in feeling like a real writer. Gray and compact, the boxy plastic model was quieter and lighter than my mother's. It fit fabulously in its fold-up case, complete with a handle, perfect for portability and setting up on our kitchen table.
Amid various jobs, I continued flinging off stories, gaining more rejections under my belt. but I kept my little gems. They shined just for me--until 2018, when I dusted off my folder and revised and lengthened the fantasy tale, Parlor Game which appears in my time-twisting book, The Epochracy Files.
A few years later, I revised and lengthened it and now shines on its own with a beautiful cover.
Punching my timecard along with the keys, I paid my dues. The typewriter tribulations make computer use even sweeter--but it was an acquired taste. Somehow, I skipped the era of word processors and leapt into the early 90s windowless world of DOS. But reveling in the rewards of computer ease wasn't easy. The deliciousness had to marinate, first heaving myself over frustrating hurdles. Every new technology is a hair-pulling innovation, testing marriages and catapulting cerebral levels, finally squeezing binary brain juice into a cup. Once mastered, we can drink and soak it all in!
Thankfully, the QWERTY keyboard survived the metamorphosis, even if the # number/pound sign changed its name and became a demanding little diva.
But isn't technology a sort of Schrodinger's cat, a yin and yang of old and new mixed with love and hate? It cannot exist without the other. Yet while basking in appreciation and relief of the newfangled conveniences, a faded part of me still yearns for yesteryear.
When I dig up old stories and essays from my dresser drawer, I'm amazed at how well the typing appears. Except for the bad habit of riding too long on bald ink ribbons, there's hardly any typos.
Remarkable! I know I was far from perfect. In fact, typing classes were torturous Mount Everests! As my own worst critic, even I'm impressed when I examine my work, making the extra effort worth it. But I'm baffled. How was this possible?
Was survival mode stringing typers through the time tunnel? Did not having the safety net of a delete button, an infinite paperless screen, and the ease of 'cut and paste' scare us skillful? Did knowing we pretty much had one shot to get it right force us to walk the tightrope without looking down? Or aghast-- did all those dreadful typing drills actually pay off? (Shhh! Don't tell the teachers.)
My refreshed futuristic time capsule/diary mystery, Chronicle of the Century was one of the original booklets my mother typed back then called The Diary of Janet Marsh. Taking place in a peculiar, troubled world of 2078, a school assembly cracks open a crate from a century past. As the principals pull out a few trinkets, an ancient clunky typewriter is among them. I was happy to conjure up the secret longing in my heart with this passage. I think Principal Rehtom says it best:
“Yes, the ribbon is dull and it takes some muscle to pound a key, but ah, it is nostalgic,” Mrs. Rehtom waxed. "What a feeling it is to shake hands with the past. There’s something about the sound—tap and punch, tap and punch—and the bell when the carriage returns—oh, it’s like a heartbeat to the stories of another time.”
Did you travel through the typewriter time machine too? Do you hold a fondness for these old word makers?
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