Technology

Reader,

About a month ago I started receiving graduation announcements from friends and family.  It reminded me that I probably should have bought announcements.  Announcements are expensive, however, and I was not very impressed with the preview images.  Long story short, I decided to make my own.

Generally I take for granted everything technology has done over the past two decades.  Today, however, while I printed out announcements and envelopes I remembered back to a time when a beautiful card in a pristine envelope would be marred by my chicken scratch handwriting.  The more beautiful (and legible) I wanted my handwriting to appear, the longer each and every envelope would take.  The hours it would take writing each and every envelope, the mistakes, the whiteout, the wasted paper, all  have been made obsolete.

Similar advances have been made in the field of writing.  With word processors writers can delete, edit, and rearrange with a few clicks of the mouse, or taps on the keyboard.  The invention of the backspace is both a blessing, and a curse, as it distracts writers as they try to write, tempting their inner editors to take command, and squelching the creative muse in the process.  Yet the temptation of legible and savable work is tempting for many modern writers.

Add to this the plethora of new technologies out there, and a new writer can get lost fast.  No longer is it the choice between pens, papers, or typewriters.  Now you have your choice of computers: desktop, laptop, netbook, iPad, et cetera.   Word might still be the standard writing platform, but that doesn't mean that there aren't handfuls of writing programs out there for a writer to sift through.  These programs range from free to hundreds of dollars, and can have all the bells and whistles, or be minimalistic in nature.

With all these choices, how do you write?
Is writing on a computer too distracting?  If not, how do you cope?

Until next time,
Rose