D. R. Meredith has written three mystery series set in the Texas
Panhandle, a little-known area of the state even to other Texans. Two titles, MURDER BY IMPULSE and MURDER BY DECEPTION, in the John Lloyd Branson series were finalists for the Anthony Award. The book review editor for ROUNDUP MAGAZINE for more than twenty years, Meredith owns a private library of more than 5,000 books on the American West. Here’s a guest post from D. R. Meredith.
I am a Luddite of the Twenty-First century, and there are more just like me: older, uncomfortable with the pressure of social media, and impatient with constantly changing technology. Come on, guys, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
In other words, I’m a writer who has been around for more years than the Internet. I even remember writing the first draft of my first book with a ballpoint pen in a notebook. The advantage was that my notebook never crashed, taking an entire manuscript into oblivion. The disadvantage was deciphering what I’d written. All those crossed-out words, new paragraphs written in the margins with little arrows pointing to where to insert them, and lots of internal arrows pointing to where whole blocks of text should be moved, contributed to major headaches and increased use of Anglo-Saxon four-letter words.
The next step in my creative process was transcribing my handwritten manuscript. I used a typewriter, and thought the invention of Liquid Paper was God’s special gift to writers. I could cover typos and keep on working. No more erasing mistakes and more likely than not leaving a hole in the paper.
But there were still problems. If you decided to elaborate on a scene, well, that meant 
retyping a page. Taking out a scene, adding or subtracting words, re-arranging paragraphs, also meant hours of typing new pages. I recently shredded the many drafts of the first title in my Murder By series. It amounted to over two thousand pages to create a 273 page mystery. I wonder how many writers, even very, very, good writers, decided not to re-write quite so much when it meant more and more re-typing. It wasn’t like most of us were making big bucks from our books, so the longer it took to finish a manuscript, the lower your income for the year.
Then came another invention that I was certain was inspired by God just to benefit writers: the personal computer.
My first computer was an old Radio Shack model with the keyboard and monitor all of a piece. I don’t remember how much RAM it had, but by today’s standards it was a microscopic amount. Still, I loved that old computer. I could delete words, insert words, move paragraphs as many times as I wished until the narrative was perfect, and then check my spelling and even grammar and punctuation with a couple of keystrokes. At last I could let loose my creative muse. No more endlessly typing a scene over and over again to add or delete material.
Technology was on a roll. Soon I could copy my manuscripts to a disk and mail them to my editor. No more endless pages spit out by my printer. Then came email. Instant communication with agent and editor. Wonderful! Better than the telephone, because you had a written record of what was said. Not to sound paranoid, but when dealing with publishers, keep a written record. Writing is not only art, but business, and no smart businessman fails to keep written records.
I had to take extended sick leave from writing, actually more than five
years, and when I returned the art of writing had morphed into the business of writing, ie., marketing by social media. As a newly declared Indie writer I had to deal with Facebook, twitter, Google +, and a plethora of promotional sites, some free and some not so free. I considered returning to bed and hiding under the covers. But I didn’t. I joined Facebook, twitter, etc., etc., learned how to post, established a web/blog site, and joined the Twenty-First century.
But I’m not happy about it. From struggling to write the perfect paragraph, creating a three-dimensional character, and evoking a strong sense of place, I find myself struggling to balance marketing and writing. I finally set up a schedule: no more than an hour a day on twitter, an update to my Facebook page once a week, usually Friday, answer emails while resisting the urge to post on all my LinkedIn groups, and quickly check for comments on my web/blog site. That leaves most of the day to write. It is a schedule that works for me.
What doesn’t work for me is the constant messing about with social media sites by their respective CEOs. “We’ll improve your page, twitter or Google + account, etc ., etc., and you can spend your time learning how to navigate all over again.” Oh, what fun! Thank you very much.”
Then there are the constant new versions of Windows, Word, Adobe Player, etc., etc. I always clutch my old versions to my breast until I can no longer avoid an upgrade. It’s not that I despise change or learning new skills, but to my aging nostrils comes a faint whiff of timed obsolescence, of marketing a new version of a software before the previous version has reached its sell-by date.
These are all legitimate complaints, but they are insignificant compared to the benefits of the computer age. I am finally free to create without the hindrance of tedious retyping to rearrange text, of pages marred by splotches of Liquid Paper, by the continuous sound of the printer churning out reams of paper.
I may be a Luddite, but I’m not stupid. I know a good thing when I see it, and for a writer, the computer age is as important a turning point as the invention of moveable type.
Jim: Thanks Meredith for an interesting look at the progress of the book-writing process. A lot of us have been through that and share your feelings on how it stands today.
You can find out more about D.R. Meredith and her many books by visiting her author page at: http://amzn.to/11qCKx2
And be sure to leave her a comment on the blog. Does this mirror your progress? Are you somewhat new to the computer age and find it all perfectly natural? Give us your feelings on the current social media landscape. What do YOU use?
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Love this post by D. R. Meredith. Luddite? Hardly! She may not be happy about some of the latest changes thrown our way by social media, but she’s embraced them impressively. For most of us–whether writer, musician, artist, actor, in fact just about anybody in business for himself–Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., are tools that can expand our audience. I really like Meredith’s discipline on limiting how much time is spent on it each day. It is way too easy to get sucked in and there goes one’s afternoon! But remembering that it’s a tool, and allotting a fixed amount of time to it each day, insures that you keep up with it, but that it doesn’t take you away from your creative work.
I agree. I can’t imagine writing more than a few pages without my word processor, or at least I can’t imagine editing and rewriting those pages in longhand or on a typewriter. I won’t be destroying any labor-saving devices. However, the time spent on social media sites can be a bit devastating to the writing schedule. I, for one, need to check and update those sites quickly in order to have time to write. Thank you for the thoughts.
And thanks for your comment. I think a lot of us agree with you about the social media. It is a great time sink. I need to set an alarm to end the social media for the day.
I’m still smiling as I type this – on my computer keyboard. I too identify so much with your post. My first novel was written with pen before typing it onto a computer. I persevered until our children were old enough for me to return to nursing. I worked an extra few months so we could afford our first 40 kb computer. Yeah, so small had to make sure copied files to a floppy disc. However, I did find the transition of creative writing while both hands tapped on keys instead of the pen rolling out letters not at all easy. Now my brain is so re-trained I find it harder to write by hand than type my thoughts.
Thank you for sharing this, Meredith. Sure brings back memories but also makes me thank God for computers – even though it does mean more manuscripts are now pouring out and making the competition to be published just that much tougher.
Thanks for the comment. I think Meredith said what a lot of us feel. As for the competition, while the computer makes it easier, the quality is still the important thing.
And the quality is still hard to come by.
I remember getting my IBM Selectric III with a built-in eraser ribbon and thinking it was God’s greatest creation. Now, I can’t imagine life without my laptop, and having a broken cell phone, with the resulting loss of internet access while I’m away, is making me nuts. I’m still a techno-idiot, but I don’t know what we’d do without all the modern gadgets.
Thanks for the comment, Linda. The nice thing now is that these tools do not require us to be a techno-whiz.
I remember those old TRS80 computers. You had to program them yourself half the time. You had a book and you typed them in.
Oh, I’m a humanities techie. I don’t care what’s under the hood, I just like a tool that makes it easier for me to get words out of my head and into the world at large.
Today, my office is my computer. File cabinets. I have some around here somewhere, but unless I want an asthma attack why should I go there when I have a hard drive, a dropbox and a gdrive account. Do I miss typewriters. Yeah! Like a bad headache I miss them. Pens? Oh, yeah I have one of them around here somewhere. Not sure it it has any ink in it or not. My library is a couple of clicks away.
Notebooks, why would have have them when I have evernote?
My computer has become even more my office as my health has declined a bit. I can sit in a recliner or on the front porch and work away. I take my Chromebook and write wherever I’m at. And if I need something it doesn’t have, I can access my 25 pound 18 inch Alienware behemoth with 64 GB of RAM. And if I don’t need the big screen (like for graphics work I do) I can access it from my two pound Chrome book online by remote software.
No, when some waxes nostalgic for the “good old days” around this senior citizen, I just tell them they need to check with their doctors because something is seriously wrong with their memories. These are the good New days for writers.
Wow. From a TRS80 to 64 Gigs of Ram. That’s like my father telling me he started in horse drawn wagons and then watched a man walk on the moon. What an amazing world we live in. Thanks for sharing with us, Terri. You do have an amazing set of tech tools.
I was fortunate. I had a fairly good sized lump-sum payout in addition to my pension on retiring. Buying an annuity with it would only have added a few dollars a month to the steady income, so I used it to do several things including upgrading my tech stuff.
It is like what you said about your father. My Dad was like that. But from the horse drawn carriage to man walking on the moon took about 60 years. I got my TRS80 in 1982, That’s a little over 30 years. Think about it. I got my iPad 2 in 2012 now they are on iPad 4. But that’s why I specifically ordered a high powered computer. I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy new computers ever three years or so. So, I consciously decided to buy the computer that I would need about 10 years from now.
I have a friend who proudly says he writes everything with a pencil, just as Hemingway did. What he doesn’t tell is that his wife then types everything up for him.
Of course that wouldn’t work for me. Neither my wife nor I would be able to read what I had written after 24 hours.
Linda S. Glaz wrote (but the comment didn’t take, I guess) —
Took my daughters forever to convince me to change from
a word processor. I don’t like change.
And Linda Apple said —
OH HOW FUNNY!!!!! My mentor, Velda Brotherton, still refuses!
__._,_.___
Great to hear from you – enjoyed the interview – terrible that we live in the same town but never see one another. Jim is a client of mine.
Terry.
It’s amazing when you look back at how things were done in the past. There are times I’d like to throw the computer out the window, but your post reminded me of how far we’ve come and how much easier things are now.
Marja McGraw
Isn’t that the truth. I need to remember that even with the occasional computer glitch, things for a writer are so much better.
thank you computer.