Computer Thoughts

There is something pleasurably narcissistic about reflecting things that are irrelevant to the "people who are not me" demographic; there is a sort of guilty pleasure that I associate with the act, a feeling that I am writing in a way that I am often scornful of. I don't, as a general rule, try to write for any length of time about my "things." Frankly, I don't think this revelation will bother or impress anybody; certainly, my things won't mind if I ignore them, because they're things.

I wanted to write today not so much about the shiny new computer on my desk (and it is, indeed, shiny. I touched it once and now it's covered in fingerprints.) Instead, what's on my mind is the feeling I have now that I'm writing on this new piece of fancy equipment. It feels like a milestone for some reason, and I find myself thinking back to the my very earliest days as a writer and the fledgling efforts of an uncertain hand.

The sound of rapid keystrokes has always been something that I relish and as a younger person, I specifically taught myself how to type at an age and time where Hunt-And-Peck was the order of the day. I didn't have any reason beyond liking the sound of clicking keys. It sounded mature, it sounded impressive and it sounded like I was creating something that was not an artifact of a childhood world, but important, adult-world work.

We don't put a lot of thought into our writing tools outside of the basics. It's either notebook and pen, or keyboard, with most of us now firmly in the camp of the latter. We only pay attention to the tools in our minds. Our processes. Our mental games, our psychic gymnastics, all the things that we do to get ourselves from the mental state that gets us through the day into one that is capable of true expression, a state capable of composition.

And largely, the actual tools don't matter. We've all heard about certain famous writers composing their masterpieces on the backs of envelops and napkins. I've written on a variety of computers, ones that I owned, ones I've borrowed, public computers in libraries and coffee shops, and much of the time, I never think twice about it.

But as I was setting up the new machine on my desk, as I was checking the cords and arranging the speakers, I could not help but think about the first time I ever sat down in front of my parents' computer with the intention to "write a book." I remember the keyboard that they had; it was one of those divided, ergonomic thingies with the curved wrist supports and the division in the middle, so that your left and right hands stay on their own damn keys. My parents, evidently, did not approve of cross-hand key interactions. Perhaps it was deemed unseemly, or something.

On a completely unrelated note, this post is an excellent example of why I always approach public reflection with the slightest hint of trepidation. Generally, I try to keep this meandering, wandering stream of consciousness thinking to myself, or at the very least, I keep it concealed behind a screen name so that when somebody looks at my deathless prose and denounces me as having no business wielding a keyboard, I can say to myself, well, they're not really denouncing me and for some reason, that makes me feel better, to know that the integrity of my good name has been preserved.

I recognize, of course, that I could make this space private if I so chose, but I think that given the context of what we're trying to do here, it would go against the spirit of the class. After all, we learn from each other as much as we learn from what we read and what we're told. I do not pretend to contain any great insight on the nature of craft or indeed, writing in general, but maybe there's something in here that might be useful or interesting to people who are not in the demographic of me.

At the very least, it doesn't cost me anything to share and I'm just shameless enough to embrace that with a smile.