The Tools to Get There.

And two months just like that. Blame the job, huh?

Lately I've taken to writing all of my work on an old Smith-Corona typewriter. Something about the computer's screen makes it nearly impossible to construct a complete sentence, let along anything worth posting or publishing. I'm a fast typist, but a lousy one, so pretty much anything I type on this infernal machine will be missing letters, have the wrong letters places, or will be simply old-fashioned misspelled. But the fact that I would give any copy editor a stroke is worth it for the tactile sensation, for the satisfying THINK that the keys make when they hit the paper. Plus, the typewriter provides some link to my persistent fantasies of the 1940s, fostered by too many viewings of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Combo. Besides, if they made computers which were 1/2 as stylish as these machines, today's modern offices would have at least some level of class. (And, yes, I wrote that previous sentence to try the "one-half" key on the typewriter. I know you can't see it, but how often do you get to use something like that?)

But enough on my methods of expression, at least the ones that you cannot see because I have to retype the entire work into the computer. I pulled out this Smith-Corona in the first place because I had entered a writing rut. After three months of intensive editing, I had drifted away from the inspiration and drive which had led me to start this blog and which informed all of my screenplays. Construction eluded me, and what I did manage to write in the way of dialogue felt awfully faux-bois. I'm not sure to what I can attributed my stymied nature in relation to the computer, but I can probably say with some authority that three months of editing had made me loath to sit in that chair or stare at that screen anymore. A change of venue was in order, even it it was only across the room.

So here we go, dealing with a period key that always stick and with an unfamiliar layout which often causes me to hit three or four letters at a time. I'll conjure images of Steven J. Cannell and Jessica Fletcher for as long as ti takes to get back into the groove of writing. In all honesty, I'm starting to enjoy the SMACK of these letters over the CLICK of my laptop's keys. And while I realize that it will all end up in the computer anyway, I can at least enjoy the process of getting it there.

The retro-blogger. Who would have thought?