So I’m reading The Great Gatsby now, and strong memories of reading Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden came to mind. Maybe it’s ‘cuz of the whole “they were contemporaries” thing, but I think I’ll try a Hemingway novel next.
It was because of this that I started thinking about word processing. I know that I’m not the only person in the world to think about it, but because of my association of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, I couldn’t help but think of the writing process and about my independent study.
One of the projects we had done, as Melany will attest to, was manuscript study. We picked apart The Garden of Eden layer by later — the original type, the cross outs, the handwritten add-ins and the typed ones, the final product. It was incredibly intriguing for me as a student, a reader, and as a faux-writer.
Thus, with this in mind, my thoughts drifted to mine own writing process and those of others. I’m not talking about point A to point B (obviously), more about the fact that with the advent of technology, manuscript study on a contemporary novel such as say The Life of Pi, a potentially rising classic, may or may not be more complicated than books composed the old fashioned way. (Of course, this is with the impression that most writers use a computer now.)
IIRC, in Stephen King’s On Writing, the popular author admitted to still using a typewriter — I confess, however, that I may or may not be making this up.
Typewriters are pretty cool. My first 10-page paper was written on one way back in 1995. Admittedly, it was quite the process, and the “backspace” key on a computer is far more useful than the typewriter, but there is something certainly charming and quaint about the typewriter. Maybe it’s kinda how I still like to write letters and not simply send e-mails.
You’re not making it up.
Nope, I remember the typewriting thing too. I still have George by the way (we did have George didn’t we? I thought so). I also feel a strange pull to play around on a typewriter again…but not the one I used to use before my first computer. I’d like to play around on one of the older ones. It’s not as quiet as a computer but the thump-clack noise has a certain feeling it brings on
I remember when they had typewriters at the public library, before we were allowed to use the few computers they had… Those things were fabulous. We wouldn’t have anything to type, we’d just book a typewriter and rattle of some nonsense or other, playing w/ the backspace and arranging the letters directly on the page, just as we wished them…
It was quite difficult to pick up where you left off if you had to take your paper out, though. :/