Teresa Driscoll - Author
  • Home
  • BOOKS
    • I AM WATCHING YOU - book club questions
  • Blog
  • My writing life
    • How to get published...
  • Telly days
  • Talks
  • Contact

Wot - no more typewriters?

12/5/2012

 
Picture
Tap, tap, tap….ping.   Tap, tap, tap…ping.

Oh but I cannot begin to describe the walk down memory lane it has stirred for me – the end credits, confirmed recently as the final British typewriter rolled off the production line.

On the basis of “use it or lose it” I make no case for complaint. Haven’t used a typewriter in years. Don’t even have one in my house (sadly). But the  memories, folks.

When I first started in newspapers, I couldn’t believe the noise. It really was - tap, tap, tap… Ping. Tap, tap, tap… Ping. ALL DAY! Most of us had manual typewriters with the snazzy electric models reserved for the copytakers on headphones (taking dictation from reporters in the field).

Back then most newspaper journalists were pretty nifty on the ol' keys too. Classes in touch typing were a compulsory part of my pre-entry course in journalism and - thank heavens.  Forget writer’s block. On a deadline, you need to get the words down fast.

We had to turn in several copies of each story and so  the Kent Messenger newspaper group (where I trained) bought in huge rolls of multi-sheet paper with continuous carbon woven through. You just threaded the end of the giant roll into your typewriter and ripped the story off when you’d finished. One copy to your newseditor. One to the group newseditor and one onto your “spike” for reference. (Yes. Health and safety – you heard me.  We had proper sharp spikes on our desk...)

It wasn’t until I transferred to Thames TV that the first computer system appeared in the 80s. It was called BASYS. How the yoof would roar. Big, chunky system which at the time we considered the bee’s knees.  You should have seen me – tap, tapping at my giant computer, then rushing out with a HUGE shoulder pack to charge my not-so-mobile phone.

Then when I transferred to the BBC in 1990, there was a techno time-slip. To my horror they were still on typewriters in Plymouth so for a time it was back to hand -typed autocue with corrections by tippex (I kid you not).

All this personal history means I am genuinely staggered when other writers and authors say they write by hand. Pen and paper? Seriously?  Having tap, tapped away my whole writing career – it just wouldn’t occur to me. Quite apart from anything else shorthand completely ruined my handwriting. Pitman New Era was also a compulsory part of my training (100 words per minute or you couldn’t get your Proficiency Certificate) and once I learned to notate that fast, I never had the patience with longhand. Sadly my handwriting, so lovingly nurtured through my schooling, paid a terrible price.

Now, of course, I am wedded to my laptop. Love the convenience.  Love that I can store all my work on a tiny pen. Love that I can email an entire MS to my agent and love that I can so easily transfer material from one computer to another.

But for all the neatness and convenience of a computer manuscript, I still feel a sad pang at the thought of a typed one. The letters ever so slightly out of alignment. The slow fade as the ribbon wears down. And come to think of it, I realise now that I owe much of my discipline as a writer (ipso facto my tendency to get cracking first and edit later) to those early years as a journalist when it was so darn infuriating to make corrections.

Whenever new and aspiring writers ask me for advice, I always remember that lesson; that the most important thing is to get going. To trust your “voice” and to get the words down as they  flow. Don’t make the mistake of talking too much about your writing, I say. Don’t overthink it, either.

Just write.

I find this especially important when starting something new. A big mistake to spend hours and hours honing the first paragraph just because a computer makes it easy to do so. That’s just a recipe to lose confidence. I prefer to write a good chunk first. Honing is for later.

If it helps, pretend you are back there in the ol’ days with a typewriter which will leave a record of every single crossing out. The solution? Don’t cross everything out.

Write now. Today. Lots.

Let it flow.

(PS And by a timely coincidence, I now find myself assigned to the role of copy typist for my younger son who has trapped his hand in a door! Tap, tap, tap.....Are you sure they set this as homework??)





Comments are closed.
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Author

    Teresa Driscoll - journalist, author, mother of two and lover of great coffee.

    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    CATEGORIEs

    All
    Tips For Writers

    Archives

    March 2021
    September 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012

  • Home
  • BOOKS
    • I AM WATCHING YOU - book club questions
  • Blog
  • My writing life
    • How to get published...
  • Telly days
  • Talks
  • Contact