After critique group last Friday, I had planned on blogging about the importance of getting into all of your characters heads; not just the main ones.
I am grateful for an awesome critique member who caught a big OOPS! in my writing, because I wasn't fully into that characters head when I wrote it. Lesson learned.
So, now that I've touched on that, I want to write about something else.
Sitting on one of the many full bookshelves in my home are three thick binders. Inside these binders are lovingly typed out history pages that my eighty-nine-year-old grandma made for each of her grandchildren.
Many relatives offered to teach her to use a computer. They told her that it would be quicker and easier. She refused, wanting to use the old typewriter we had played with as kids. (I remember having contests with my brother to see who could get the most keys stuck sticking up). This is one of those typewriters with the carriage that moves as you type and then has to be manually returned. No cut and paste. No delete. Mistakes were covered with white-out, then re-typed. Tappity-tap-tap-ching!
How easy we have it now.
I was at my grandma's house today and asked her if she still uses that old typewriter. She responded that she does occasionally, but needs to be careful because she doesn't know if she can get new ribbon for it.
I doubt any of us will convince her to switch to a computer. But, those books are even more special to us because of the extra effort it took her to complete them.
The next time you're dreading revisions...be glad that you aren't doing it on an ancient typewriter with a bottle of white-out. :)
There's a certain charm about a type writer and white-out, isn't there? I can appreciate it, but you're right; I don't ever want to do revisions that way!
ReplyDeleteStopping by after David's shout out today.
ReplyDeleteLove this post. Gives new meaning to appreciating what we have.
I can imagine trying to revise that way... it would not be pretty. I would probably break the typewriter out of frustration.
ReplyDeleteOh, my goodness. I can't even imagine trying to do revisions on a manual typewriter! But I can totally imagine your grandma. So sweet that she did all that for you!
ReplyDeleteI'm old enough to remember pounding away on a typewriter and using white-out (to write papers in graduate school, and poetry) and I'll tell you never a day goes by that I don't fall to my knees and worship my computer. Technology rocks!
ReplyDeleteEven worse, can you imagine having to make copies with carbon paper. :)
ReplyDeleteI loved that stuff when I was a kid, but I'll take my printer.