Touch Typing Typical?

I am a touch typist, which means I can type without looking at the keyboard. It has been years since my typing skills have been timed, but I suspect that I am well over 100 words per minute for typing, and pretty close to that when I compose as well.

I learned to type when I was a freshman in high school. I had one semester of typing, and we were typing on very old, very stiff manual typewriters. It was when writing was loud work (I love my silent computer keyboard, but even my silent version is a bit noisy.) Although I didn't know it then, that class was one of the most valuable classes I took in high school. Being able to type saved me a lot of time in the future. I can't imagine working with a deadline and not being a fast touch typist.

But I wonder if I am the norm among writers? Are most writers touch typists? Or am I strange?

And am I *really* a touch typist? I have the alphabet completely memorized, and I can type words without any hesitation what so ever, but I need to sneak a peak on the those rare occasions when I have to hit keys I don't normally use -- like most of the F keys and some of the less used shift options on the number keys like ^ which is what you get when you hit shift AND the 6 key. Confession: When it comes to touch typing numbers, I prefer the number key pad to the numbers spread out above the letters. Alas, my laptop does not have the number key pad.

And when it comes to all of the variables available on a computer keyboard like the function key and the windows key and the page up, down, etc., I have no idea. I don't use them often, and if I do, I have to look. But keys I use frequently, like the "CTRL, ALT, DELETE" combo, I figure out even though placement tends to vary from keyboard to keyboard.

I know it wasn't that long ago that I read a post by Jenny Crusie that she was buying a keyboard that was completely blank, and I knew as I looked at a picture of the black blank keyboard that I am not that good nor would I ever be that good. I can get by with the keys that I have worn so much that you can no longer see the letter, but I can't go completely blank on a computerized keyboard. I have been using my current laptop since May, and the N key is starting to get stabbing marks on it from my fingernails and the "N" is slowly disappearing. I suspect it will be completely gone sometime this summer.

I know that for me, I have to be a touch typist. I'd never be able to do the writing work that I do without the ability to touch type. But I realize that there is more than one way to be a writer. I've never tried options like the voice to text options, but I've heard good things about them. Plus once, long ago, I used to write by hand and then type things up on a electric typewriter with the aid of a lot of Wite-out and patience. So there are other options to knowing how to touch type.

I once tried to sell my electric typewriter in a yard sale, but my mom bought it. And for a while, I was collecting very old manual typewriters, but they take up a lot of space and are very happy. I now only own one Underwood, which is a very old manual. I've never really typed on it, but I like having it in my office.

And it seems I am not alone in hanging onto old typewriters. NPR promoted the love of typewriters with QWERTY Love. Read it at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100900163

What about you? Are you a touch typist? Do you have a typewriter lurking in your house? Has the computer changed the way you write?

the things they forget to tell you

I quite enjoyed this video:

It's about that dreamy view we have of what life will be like as a writer.

For a quick smack upside the head of reality, I bring you: MY LIFE.


I really hesitated in showing that to you. Afterall, who wants to admit that their house is truly a disaster and that they child is running around naked, watching Dora and generally fending for herself while you type on a computer and wrestle with edits.

It's truly a disaster zone, I know. Five days until house possession. Five days until edits are due. Seven days until moving. Husband is working shift work and is currently asleep.

It's all fun and games until someone loses their kid in the laundry pile.

Edits... I love the pain....

This week I received the first edits back on my first book. It's exciting. It's thrilling... and yes, it's a little painful. But it's a good hurt.

I've always said that I think I have the thickest writer skin on the planet. Go ahead, kill my darlings.

Of course there's always the thought that I like a good editor because a good editor makes ME look better. And yet, it never seems to be the other way around. You don't hear anyone saying "hey, that writer made that editor look really good!"

Now, this is only the first bit of the manuscript. I had a great phone conversation with one of the senior editors about how to handle the edits... and I'm so psyched to get started!

I think the best part is that between submission and getting the edits back I had a feeling about something. Not necessarily something I'd done wrong. Ok, yeah, something I'd done wrong... and that was the main concern. I've been thinking about how to make it better, now I can.

What happens AFTER you get the Book Contract

Ah yes, isn't the book contract the GOAL? Yes, but, no. We talk a lot about what we need to do to get the book contract, how we need to find time to write, how we need to market ourselves, etc...

I sold my first book in August 2006. The same week my daughter was born. That's when I really started writing it.

My daughter is 20 months old and just today I had a phone call with an editor... the edits are coming back to me next week so I can make my changes.

I'm not complaining, not at all.... in fact I don't mind the work being spaced out like this. After all, I have kids and a job and other projects on the go. But it sure goes a lot slower than I thought it would when I signed on the dotted line.

When you think about advances... I got the first half of my advance when I signed my contract 20 months ago. The second half comes when the edits are finished and accepted. Hopefully within the next few months. That's TWO YEARS between paychecks.

Yep, this work isn't for the faint of heart. Virginia Woolf said "woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction" ... uh, yeah. Or nonfiction it seems!

One of the best things about my conversation with my editor today was her comments on the pictures. They were more than happy with them! Which is AWESOME because I took most of them! They also loved the illustrations... I had an awesome illustrator, too. Now I can justify those $$ spent on camera equipment.

We're going to have a book that has full colour photos and b&w illustrations... and it's going to rock. Or, as the GenYs at work say. It's going to be "off the hook".

The one in which I confess my addictions...

As a writer, do you still read? If you do, has being a writer changed how you read? Is it still a pleasure, or is it work? What do you read?

As wonderful a theme this is, I blushed, looked at the floor, and metaphorically muttered something about addiction when I spotted this one.


I spend around £100 on books every few months. I save and save, and then go out to Waterstones, or similar, or onto Amazon.co.uk, and buy books. Mainly fiction, but I also buy non fiction on things like writing, self help and the current projects I have in mind (I start THEM with dummies manuals, cause I'm not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to certain things).
I've got an excuse though, like every good 'junkie'.

I'm SUPPOSED to spend a small fortune, yearly, on books anyway, because its part of the requirements for being a student. Be a student, get the text books, cause though ALL the campus libraries are amazingly good, when there's 20 of us on a course, all wanting the same book, it can cause some interesting issues. So, to save those issues, I buy the core reading list without question or objection. And if we don't use them, that's OK, because I still read them.
Beyond the core reading list, I'm currently 'using' Uni as an excuse to extend my reading habits. I've spent the last five years reading a very narrow range of books, and only when my favorite authors (Terry Pratchett, Ian Rankin, Alistair Reynolds) and my favorite serials produce more books. I'll occasionally stray into other territories, but feel a bit like I'm scurrying back to comfort, so I rarely did that before Uni.
Last night though, after buying it on Friday and starting it on Saturday morning (and reading about an hour a day), I finished 'the Kite Runner'. It was fairly cool, but I'm beginning to see a pattern in 'literary work' that I don't like. And I'm glad that's not my chosen genre, for the moment.

One of the things I had to learn was not to pick. Instead I give myself the equivalent of mental indigestion by 'devouring' books whole. Reading them as if I didn't care about sentence structure, grammar, clever hooks, absorbing language...eating them like I wasn't a writer, and was simply reading them for the joy of reading.
How does that give me mental indigestion though?
The problem with devouring books whole is that if there is a huge error, your brain might try to fix it. MY brain does this on a regular basis, redesigning TV show plots when I could have 'done better' - rewriting whole book chapters for my own amusement. Consider it an antacid of sorts.
My prose lecturer took my antacids away. All I'm to do now is read. I can write, of course, but not 'rewrite' while I'm reading.
And so, when I read god awful books (which is also part of the learning process), I give myself a headache - or I get angry, up tight, agitated. My brain fills with bile, because its really annoying to see awful books come out. (I should pro ably say at this point that the Kite Runner isn't an awful book). It annoys me that writers are allowed to publish trash when there are amazing writers with brilliant stories still struggling to be discovered. It gives me 'mental indigestion'.

There are, to be honest, very few authors I respect enough not to rewrite stuff, or tweak it as I'm reading. I think that's what makes me a writer in the first place, I'm always on the look out for the 'best' way to tell a story - the 'better' way to express something - the 'right' words for that wrong occasion. And while I'm addicted to books, I'm more addicted to the craft of making books better. I love editing, even when the book is a 'literary' masterpiece. Or when its pulp fun. Just so long as I can see a way to tell the same story, in a different (and hopefully better) way, I'm fulfilling that need too.
See, I'm an addict. I'm addicted to writing - to language - to stories. I think my bank balance would prove it too ;)