Writing on the Computer
There are more people than I realize who refuse to use a computer to write on. It’s a free country, but this decision would be short-sided for me. My writing is impossible to read unless I write very slowly. And buying paper and pens, etc., would add to costs. Printing drafts would be lugubrious as I’d have to go to a copy center or have someone type it. I wouldn’t have the virtual dictionaries or thesauruses or encyclopedias or spell checker available. I can replace a word, phrase, sentence, even paragraph, move pages around, easily and then not keep the change if you like it better the way it was before.
I have been contacting senior centers to get them to host Troubles in Henry’s Nose, and I’ve found that lot of seniors don’t even have computers. I find myself to be dismayed by this. One of the center directors even told me that the was convinced that computers are ruining the country. I heard this in an area of western Pennsylvania that Trump carried in 2016. She apparently does not realize that one of the reasons Trump did as well as he did was because of the way his campaign targeted voters by computer. Her center is located outside Pittsburgh, which until the last generation or so had been dominated by the steel industry. Domestic steel died out long ago, and the Pittsburgh area has been rescued by hi-tech companies, which use – guess what – computers.. All three rivers and the air is considerably cleaner than it was back in the Steel days.
But. some of the recent features Word has introduced make me sit up and take notice. It now comments on my syntax and word usage, instructing me to be more concise, and not to use certain bad words because I might offend my readers. I chose words for didactic purposes. For example, it’s okay to have a character use bad, even horrible, racist words, in dialogue to help me characterize the character. And if a character is self-centered and has a bloated ego, his language reflects and communicates that. And sometimes, having the character say “really” is okay. Saul Bellow once quipped, “They give the Pulitzer Prize for literature, not grammar.” So, go ahead, write badly if you can thereby plot or flesh out his character.
You should at least consider using a computer on which to write. A friend of mine used to write her stories long-hand, then type into a computer, revising as she wrote. That may work well for her, but would not be an efficient use of my time.