The Empty Page

in ,

Disjointed thoughts about writing on paper composed on the computer after having read Colin Walker's blog (which you should be reading too).

It's fun to read Colin Walker's thoughts as he moves to writing everything by hand. There's real joy there. I know that feeling, even though I'm drafting this on the computer in Writer: The Internet Typewriter an editor I've loved for years. It's great for creation (and surprisingly good for revision), but like any electronic writing tool it can disappear words too easily.

I remember computers in the nineties. I'd write for hours until someone tripped on the power cord. The machine would go black and quiet. All was lost. Rebooting led to a blank screen and blinking cursor, confirming the unsaved draft was completely gone.

I lost seventeen pages that way once. Poof.

Technological breakdowns like that have been largely overcome, but the biggest dangers of writing on the computer remain: the delete and backspace keys and the writers who use them too much sometimes on pages and pages of work. It seems the same as crumpling paper and starting a new sheet but if feels different and has very different consequences.

Colin Walker is describing the power of analog writing and the need for things touched, felt, and held onto. I have a handwritten story from tenth grade (1983) that barring disaster can easily remain readable, tactile, and (dare I say it) delightful for centuries. Every time I dig it out, I smile both at the thought of myself back then and at the feeling of holding those pages.

The power of analog creation begins with the blank page on the desk and the pen in hand, the writer palpable in the process and not mediated by electricity, networks, or file formats. Palpable means able to be touched and such things have more heft, a feeling about them of value. Filling half a page by pen, I'm likely to keep going with my thinking and accept the imperfections. Filling the whole page, I begin to feel the act of writing revealing what I want to say as well as how I want to say it. Even if I crumple it and throw it in the bin, until the recycling is collected, there's still the artifact. It's right there within reach. I can see it. I know it's there.

Analog writing depends completely on the actions of the writer. Auto-correct kicks in when I feel a misspelling or misplaced comma. Formatting consists of underlines, circles, the occasional use of all-caps. Revisions are actual marks on the page, lines drawn from place to place, and scribbled in additions. Sometimes the writing flows around a drawing, post-it, or coffee stain. It's all up to me.

One reason I don't much like Microsoft Word is that it wants to do more of the work for me. I'm more creative when I'm alone with the words and, quite literally, left to my own devices.

Writing on paper connects me with the act of writing. It changes my thinking. On paper I'm a writer, not a publisher or editor. I write words, lots of them, and that takes me places.

Walker sounds like a writer and thinker here:

I now find a blank page inviting, a place of discovery where I don't know what I am going to find but will enjoy the hunt."

The blank analog page, once marked, can't be made blank again. That's its killer feature.

The Urge To Share

in

I read someone saying that social media isn't a plague, that it's bad, but not that bad and there are some positive uses for it. I've thought about that and come to this: social media is a cesspool from which plagues come. Sure, cesspools are useful, but I'm not going to live in one. I'm with Jaron Lanier on this. I just feel that Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest are bad for us.

It's like sugar which tastes good but is poison in the amounts at which I consume it. I'd lead a better life without sugar, but it's tough to quit. You're still on social media because you're hooked, right?

If Facebook, Twitter, or whatever make your life better, then go ahead. If you use them because your friends are all on them, okay, whatever. If you use them despite feeling that they are a cancer on society, well then I've got nothing for you.

I'm thinking about social media also because I've been doing things differently in my life and it's the sort of thing I'd have posted on Twitter or Facebook. Hey, look at me! Be grateful I can no longer share that way.

What about this blog? Isn't it just like social media?

There are differences that feel important. One, I'm not providing free content for some large corporation's profit. Two, people must choose to come and read. Three, commenting takes more work. Four, I'm not much invested in growing my "following." I used to worry about the numbers, but I don't any more. If someone gets something out of this blog, good. I get plenty out of it. I mean, I'm learning how to write.

I can't think of a single lasting thing I learned on social media except that it made me deeply unhappy and is designed to do so. It made me mean. I'm not sure I'm willing to offer Zuckerberg and Dorsey any gratitude for that lesson.

I still have the hard-wired urge to share. That urge is fine unless it comes out of a sense of jealousy or insecurity and so long as that urge isn't satisfied too easily.

Anything I want to share here, I draft usually in pen or on the typewriter. If it still seems worth sharing, I type it on the computer. I consider again if it's worth sharing. I revise to make it ten- or twenty-percent shorter. By then I've made the decision and copy it from my favorite online writing tool into my web-host's software, give it one last look, and publish. The process gives me time to ask, am I sharing something worth someone's while? My answer may be different than yours. That's fine. You choose to stay with me or not.

I don't have any algorithm here. It's just you and me. Social media platform algorithms prey upon our weaknesses because strong users are lousy customers and these folks want suckers, billions of them. As for this, no money has changed hands, no advertisers have had their say, and you're free to go at any time.

I just wanted to share that.

The social-network-internet of today is best understood when you hold in your mind the image of a faceless person scrolling down a screen endlessly for all of eternity, but yet for whom satisfaction never comes. –Rebecca Toh

Steering Clear of BOOM

in

I have been pretty busy. That's good. Being busy means I am engaged in a bunch of things. I'm not overly busy. That's the state of trying to do too much and failing to engage any of it well enough to feel good. I'm coming up on that though, and need to be careful, but for now I'm just pretty busy.

Still, being this busy has kept me away from writing and that sets off a warning. Reminds me of Apollo 13 when the Saturn V loses an engine on ascent. The astronauts wonder what's up. CAPCOM wonders what's up. The flight director wonders what's up. Then one engineer says, no problem, we'll burn the other four a longer and all will be well. My warning light is blinking and mission control is checking my systems. I'm okay to burn longer, achieve orbit, head for the moon.

The thing to avoid is when Apollo 13 went BOOM after leaving Earth orbit for the moon. BOOM is bad. BOOM is life-threatening. BOOM ends things fast. I don't want BOOM. I've been there before.

That's some comfort too, familiarity with such things. I've unintentionally blown up my life several times. In each case I was dead in space, but I did what Gene Kranz directed after Apollo 13 went BOOM: I worked the problem. Those engineers and directors made let Apollo 13 go on to the moon, knowing gravity would return it to Earth. There was no shortage of hardship and danger along the way, but the astronauts arrived back on Earth. Boom wasn't the end of the story.

Even so, I don't want to go BOOM. I'll avoid being too busy to write, stealing twenty minutes at the kitchen table typing this. I'll write a little and remind myself a lot. Then I'll close the computer and decide what to do next, where to engage, what to let go, how to be busy but not overly so. After all, I'm going all the way to the moon.

And back.