Re: TOOLS and TECHNOLOGY

[Elna Tymes <etymes -at- LTS -dot- COM>]

Rebecca-
>
> I wonder if anyone writes in such a primitive environment today? Are there
> any holdouts from the bygone days out there?

One of my problems has always been that I type so fast that I need a
mechanism that will keep up with me. I learned to type while in grammar
school (approximately 60 wpm), and then slowly built up speed until I
wound up on the staff of the campus newspaper while in college.  There,
using an old table-model Underwood, I learned to type veryveryfast (90
wpm) because we were always trying to beat the time when the printers
went from regular time to overtime rates. Big problem was that those old
Underwoods, with each key on a lever, tended to stack up if you typed
too fast.

You can imagine my delight when the first IBM Selectrics (with the
revolving type ball) came out. So my typing speed picked up (110 wpm).
However I also noticed that, although I could now type almost as fast as
I thought, I couldn't change my mind easily.  I went through a lot of
white-out fluid.  I also learned that if I was going to write something
that I'd be editing on the fly - such as some kinds of first drafts, an
essay, a letter - that I'd do better writing it out longhand on yellow
pads, where the eraser end of the pencil could help out when the lead
end produced something needing redirection.  I've since learned that
writing something longhand is a great way to slow me down long enough to
do a lot of editing in my head, since my handwriting gives me ample time
to phrase and rephrase something in my head as I'm writing.  And paper
drafts give me opportunities for drawing arrows or lines or circles
around pieces that need to move somewhere else.

All that said, I still vastly prefer a heavy-duty word processor on a
reasonable-speed computer to the old ways.  I can type at a speed closer
to the way I think (120+ wpm), edit without correction fluid, and have a
spellchecker make those corrections I was just positive I wouldn't
need.  <g> And do a lot of formatting that I could never do longhand,
and do on the Selectric only with extra effort.

So yes, Rebecca, there are still some of us out there who are writing
SOME things longhand, in pencil on yellow pads.

Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems