I was the weirdo kid who, in elementary school, decided that it would be ultra cool to carry my toy typewriter in a briefcase to school. I was determined that I was going to be a writer even if it was with a make believe typewriter. I loved the School House Rock specials because they would use vivid graphics to spell words and words were magic for me. When I learned that there was a David Letterman show, I tried to stay awake every night because I thought it was a show about words. Imagine my disappointment when it was just a dude talking. The English language and letters were not star of the show. I wanted him to change his name because he was not, in fact, Letter Man.
I wrote my first “book” in a Lisa Frank spiral bound notebook. It was called the Ancient City and was about a group of archaeologists who found a long lost city. It was set in Egypt but they ended up in a jungle. It was a massive ten pages long and I’m sure Mama still has it in her keepsakes of my school work. To the best of my recollection, the story wasn’t that great but my friends all loved reading it, so it encouraged me to write more.
I moved up from there to my mama’s antique Royal typewriter. It’s the cast iron kind that you see in movies where people are writing their life’s work. Or a serial killer is writing a rambling diatribe of their diabolical plans, but you get the point. The keys would often stick and the ribbon was old as Methuselah. I could sometimes hit it just right to where there was still some good, unused part on the red part of the ribbon. I‘d use that for special emphasis. There was no delete button. If you wanted to change something, you had to wind the paper up so you could take White Out and correct it. Then wind the paper back down and pray you could get it on the same line as you were on.
From there I moved to a Tandy computer that had to be hooked up to the TV for a monitor. There was a big fat square program that went into the slot on the side of the computer. It never worked right so I couldn’t really use it as much as I wanted. But when it would work right, I’d print out my work on my dot matrix printer. I had to print it out because there was not a save option. If I wanted to write more, I had to retype the whole thing. Several years later, Circuit City had a full page ad for the newest Packard Bell computer with this thing called Windows on it. I somehow begged and begged enough to get it. I got it, however, with the understanding that it was to help me in school. I did use it for school but more often than not, I could be found writing.
When I got to college, I ordered a new Gateway laptop after getting a good part time job. The laptop probably weighed ten pounds and was as slow as molasses but I could write anywhere then. I was so proud of my new toy that I took it everywhere, kind of like the little weirdo from elementary school.
Now you’d think after all these progressions in technology that I would have several complete books. The sad reality is that I have a gazillion unfinished stories that have been written, edited, rewritten, completely changed, written some more, then forgotten about when life got too busy. I’d question my talent, convince myself I wrote like garbage, and quit. Boy howdy…..isn’t that just what the devil wants? Just quit. You’ll never amount to anything. Just quit. Nobody reads your blog. Just quit. Nobody will want to read your books.
Just. Quit. That’s what I’m doing. I’m quitting the quitting. I’m in the daily pursuit of my dreams and that means putting down the tools of self sabotage. You may read these stories and think wow, she’s really got some issues. Yep, that is accurate. I carry them like a baby donkey toting a weeks worth of supplies into the desert. Slow and hee-hawing all the way, with an occasional kick of my hind legs. But I’m going to keep on. It may take me until time travel is invented to get these stories out but I’m going to do it. Then I’ll go back into time and start sooner. And definitely stock up on that typewriter ribbon.
Messpot Diaries 