When I began my career, I wrote on a late 1940s Royal Quiet Deluxe typewriter. I have always hated retyping things, so I soon learned to compose what I was writing in my head before committing to paper. I also learned to type almost error-free copy. As I wrote, I read the words on the paper as they appeared. When I made a mistake, I used correction tape to correct the error.
I was overjoyed, in 1986, when I first got a PC clone and started writing with Microsoft Word 1.0 for DOS. Correcting my work was so much easier, whether I made corrections as I wrote or when I re-read the material. I loved it. I still wrote the same way, composing paragraph after paragraph in my head before typing the words. I had an outline in my head as well, along with knowing how long the document I was writing needed to be.
As word processing software improved, I added other features to my writing strategy. I created shortcuts for typing frequently used phrases. Microsoft Word let me do that, every easily. I could type three letters and then press the space bar and an entire phrase would magically appear.
But, the PC also gave me instant access to information, once the Internet existed. At any time, I could press Alt-Tab to switch the screen to my browser, where I could access the answer to just about any question I needed to ask. I learned which sources were likely to be accurate.
All of this save time, and time is money when you write as a profession. The PC helped me write more in less time. A genius invention.
When I first got the PC and started writing in word processing software, I still had to submit manuscripts that were neatly printed, double-spaced, and formatted to suit the publication I was writing for. For publications, the length of the piece was a key factor. One of the reasons I was successful as a freelance writer was my ability to turn in error-free copy that was written to fit the available space precisely.
Editors hated dot-matrix printers, so I had to buy a daisy-wheel impact printer. Giving editors what they wanted was another key reason for my success.
So, on-screen editing, access to information on the same device, and blazing fast keyboarding were all critical factors in making a good living as a magazine journalist. Anything that helped me do that was just fine with me. That's what mattered. Giving the publications exactly what they wanted in exactly the way they wanted it was the key to success.
So, I loved the improvements made and adopted them ASAP. I never longed to go back to the organic pleasures of typing on a primitive typewriter. Never. Not even for a second.
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