Cooper, Nabokov, Welch...

I once read that Jilly Cooper writes her novels in longhand*. It was years ago, albeit years after you'd have expected her to move onto something more techy. I remember thinking how long it must take, how many crossings out there must be, how many mad arrows sweeping over several pages or large asterisks denoting an extra section must be littered throughout her notebooks. Reading that she wrote in longhand provided quite the image. Indeed, after a quick search for authors who opt for this method, I found a couple more. Vladimir Nabokov and Denise Welch. All the greats.

Perhaps having a cover that
could be described as 'a bit dodge'
is a prerequisite for the longhand
writer. I'm casting no aspersions on
Denise Welch, however, having none
of her books to hand.

I get the appeal though. I got my first word processor when I was twenty-one, just in time for my dissertation. Before that, I would submit my essays in real life handwriting. Only occasionally would I type them up in the uni computer suite. A room I rarely bothered with, unless I had time to kill before a bus, and a complete essay fully written out in my bag. Yep, I had to handwrite the entire thing first before I committed it to the digital world. The idea of backspacing anything other than a spelling mistake stressed me out. I couldn't shape an argument or complete a coherent train of thought if I hadn't mapped it all out with a paper and pen first. 

Fast forward twenty years and I'm over all that. The thought of writing - with my actual hand - all of Carry the Beautiful (78000 words) or all of Leeza McAuliffe (69000 words) makes my underdeveloped arm muscles shudder. Writing is typing, is thinking, is shaping, is editing, is all of it. Not my best quotable line but you get the gist. Technology combines together all the skills I used to bring separately. And for me and my process, I'm all the better for it.

But this week, DISASTER struck.

Now look. I know I'm prone to hyperbole. And some people have real problems, right? But this really does feel disastrous. A little bit anyway. Because - and I'm mentally gripping the chair arms and gritting my teeth as I type this - after a long-overdue update on my laptop, Word 2011 no longer opens. SHHHHIIIITTTTT.

This is a screen shot of my desktop. I don't
care about the other ones, just my lovely Word.

I know other writers do things differently. (Schrivener is a tool I've tried but just can't make work. Others prefer Apple Pages.) But for me and many others, all the magic takes place on Word. Then, when the time comes, the Word Doc is formatted into an interior document and sent to the publishing company. Word is compatible with all the things I need later. And now Word has stopped working. Booooooooo.

I know what the problem is. It's dead simple. My software is out of date. It has been deemed (presumably by Bill and Melinda Gates after an impromptu family meeting around the kitchen table) that 2011 is old news, even though it is only five minutes ago in real life. I need to buy new discs or, more probably - in a crazy Sci-fi plot twist - I'll have to download something or other from somewhere. See, I know all the lingo.

I know that in a few days, I'll have worked it all out and this crisis will be consigned to the past. It's just a perfect example of why I hate technology. Technology goes out of date. I hate the need for constant updates. I hate getting a new phone. I hate that I'll turn my TV planner on and someone somewhere has decided to change the look of the whole thing and it takes me half an hour to find my saved Murder She Wrotes. I hate it all.

Still there? Oh good. I was worried my rant might have seen you off. Look, I know that I have to tackle this fear. Because as we know, hate in all its forms is really fear of something we don't understand. In my constant endeavour to be as self-sufficient as possible, it really sucks to be so reliant on something I don't understand beyond the superficial. It doesn't suit me to have to trust and believe in something of which I don't have an inside out knowledge. I don't like it.

I understand these notebooks. I don't
 fear these notebooks. These notebooks
will not need updating. These
notebooks will last forever.

*kisses fingers, argument won.*

But here we are. I have to crack on. I have to buy/download/install new Word. I need to embrace the changes. I need to be able to open my current manuscript again, and be able to carry on with Chapter 34. I also need to stay as open minded as possible. Like I am with celeriac. It looks wrong, it smells wrong, but if I add enough butter, garlic and salt, it can be very tasty. I need to add metaphoric butter, garlic and salt to new Word and it will all be OK.

It's time to be a grown up and face my fear. When it all gets too much, I can always spend an hour in Paperchase, browsing the notebooks and pretending I'm Jilly Cooper and Denise Welch. Or something. 

Have a lovely week, folks.

*I definitely did read this. For sure. But in the writing of this week's post, I tried to find a reference to link to, so that you could all see I wasn't lying. All I could find was this article where she explains she has written on a typewriter for several years. I still stand by the fact I read what I read back in the day. I can only assume it was the journalist that mislead me.