I Love My Keyboard
The other day I read on twitter that Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials series, lost the pen with which he had composed The Golden Compass. In response, a number of other writers were expressing sympathy, and discussing pens that hold similar significance in their own lives. Subsequent to this, I was reading a writing book and in it's first chapter, it discussed the need to have a special and personal pen for writing.
I understand this desire. As a writer, I love pens and journals. I have driven my fiance mad, I am sure, as I buy journals or an expensive pen, and then I do not use them. I wish I could, much of the time, but , as someone with dysgraphia, I really cannot do any extensive writing by hand, and even if I could manage to do so, it would likely be illegible to even myself. Beyond this, when I write by hand, the quality of the material itself suffers as a result of physical discomfort and fatigue. So, I am fairly bound to writing on a computer.
Now, pens and journals are wonderful because of they are real things. You can touch and hold them. They can become touchstones into a work, gaining a specificity that is almost tactile. I have kept hand written journals, at times. Often these are actually just books of handwriting for me, to be honest. I have literally entire notebooks of me practicing writing letters or the alphabet. And, in the process of even such a mundane form of writing, an attachment develops. I associate with the pen and the journal some magical quality. connected to the writing. In these cases, of course, it is more connected to the quality of the penmanship, but it makes sense that a similar feeling would exist in terms of an extensive written work done by hand.
For me, though, I would not be capable of doing that sort of work by hand, despite my having a selection of pens and journals. The possibility of being connected with a computer in the same way as a pen and journal, well, that seems unlikely, doesn't it. However, I do have something that I think of as my pen. It may sound odd, but, for me, that magical device is a Rosewill mechanical keyboard.
It's keys are heavy and loud, and when I press them, I can feel it. They are real keys, with a lot of resistance and their is an action to typing on it. The music of clicks when I am moving along rapidly, the feeling of the little raised line that marks the "f" and "j" keys, so I can find them by touch alone. It is a marvelous device, black bodied and heavy, it is a big keyboard with space for my hands, and the entire numeric pad layout. It reminds me of the keyboards when I was first learning to use a computer (which is, of course, what it was designed to emulate).
Writing on this keyboard has a feeling that I know. Even if I were blindfolded, I would tell the difference if you switched it out. I am sure that the same is true of many writer's and their most cherished writing implements. It is a physical connection to an object that acts as a carrier of meaning and memory. When I sit down to write with my keyboard, it brings back the feeling of writing my novel's last page, for example, not to mention the entire story before that. It helps to open the right mental space, by acting as a physical reminder of the times when I have been there before.
So, for me, this keyboard is my pen. It is the thing that I connect with my writing on that physical level, and I love it dearly. A part of me wonders if I would have written a novel with a different keyboard, and that does not even get into the question of whether it would be the same novel. I am sure many writers have thought such things about the pen they used, or the specific type of paper.
Writer's can be superstitious and ritualistic in our thoughts about such things. My keyboard, admittedly, is a part of that for me. I have no doubt, for instance, that I might not notice if it were switched for an identical model, but I believe I would know, or at least feel that difference. That belief is still strong in me, even as I recognize it as the magical thinking of a writer. I ascribe a connection with this object, because it has been the vehicle by which I have traveled inside myself, and that is the real truth. It is the power of my own feelings, of what I hold inside, but those things are so associated with the specificity of typing on this keyboard, of the feeling I have with these keys beneath my fingers.
I understand this desire. As a writer, I love pens and journals. I have driven my fiance mad, I am sure, as I buy journals or an expensive pen, and then I do not use them. I wish I could, much of the time, but , as someone with dysgraphia, I really cannot do any extensive writing by hand, and even if I could manage to do so, it would likely be illegible to even myself. Beyond this, when I write by hand, the quality of the material itself suffers as a result of physical discomfort and fatigue. So, I am fairly bound to writing on a computer.
Now, pens and journals are wonderful because of they are real things. You can touch and hold them. They can become touchstones into a work, gaining a specificity that is almost tactile. I have kept hand written journals, at times. Often these are actually just books of handwriting for me, to be honest. I have literally entire notebooks of me practicing writing letters or the alphabet. And, in the process of even such a mundane form of writing, an attachment develops. I associate with the pen and the journal some magical quality. connected to the writing. In these cases, of course, it is more connected to the quality of the penmanship, but it makes sense that a similar feeling would exist in terms of an extensive written work done by hand.
For me, though, I would not be capable of doing that sort of work by hand, despite my having a selection of pens and journals. The possibility of being connected with a computer in the same way as a pen and journal, well, that seems unlikely, doesn't it. However, I do have something that I think of as my pen. It may sound odd, but, for me, that magical device is a Rosewill mechanical keyboard.
It's keys are heavy and loud, and when I press them, I can feel it. They are real keys, with a lot of resistance and their is an action to typing on it. The music of clicks when I am moving along rapidly, the feeling of the little raised line that marks the "f" and "j" keys, so I can find them by touch alone. It is a marvelous device, black bodied and heavy, it is a big keyboard with space for my hands, and the entire numeric pad layout. It reminds me of the keyboards when I was first learning to use a computer (which is, of course, what it was designed to emulate).
Writing on this keyboard has a feeling that I know. Even if I were blindfolded, I would tell the difference if you switched it out. I am sure that the same is true of many writer's and their most cherished writing implements. It is a physical connection to an object that acts as a carrier of meaning and memory. When I sit down to write with my keyboard, it brings back the feeling of writing my novel's last page, for example, not to mention the entire story before that. It helps to open the right mental space, by acting as a physical reminder of the times when I have been there before.
So, for me, this keyboard is my pen. It is the thing that I connect with my writing on that physical level, and I love it dearly. A part of me wonders if I would have written a novel with a different keyboard, and that does not even get into the question of whether it would be the same novel. I am sure many writers have thought such things about the pen they used, or the specific type of paper.
Writer's can be superstitious and ritualistic in our thoughts about such things. My keyboard, admittedly, is a part of that for me. I have no doubt, for instance, that I might not notice if it were switched for an identical model, but I believe I would know, or at least feel that difference. That belief is still strong in me, even as I recognize it as the magical thinking of a writer. I ascribe a connection with this object, because it has been the vehicle by which I have traveled inside myself, and that is the real truth. It is the power of my own feelings, of what I hold inside, but those things are so associated with the specificity of typing on this keyboard, of the feeling I have with these keys beneath my fingers.
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