I’ve been thinking about the evolution of writing tools over the course of my career. With the dizzying array of programs, apps, and web-sites, writers have unprecedented access to tools, training, and research. Technology has fundamentally changed the way we write. But as anyone who’s read a fairy tail knows, you can’t always trust Leprechauns, Genies, or Rumplestiltskin. Wishes granted aren’t always wishes fulfilled.
I perfectly understand how easy it is to become enamored with shiny new tools and toys while forgetting the grunt work. Whether it’s obsessing over finding the best pen (I’m looking at you Parker Sonnet fountain pen), the best notebook (I love Leuchtturm 1917s!), or the best word processor (hello Scrivener and Ulysses), we are drawn to finding the perfect tool to magically make the act of writing feel more natural.
But as they say when they paraphrase Francis Bacon: Technology is a great servant but a bad master. Don’t let the “magic of the new” rule your writing. Use it wisely. Use it efficiently. But never mistake technology for work.
Back in my typewriter college days I insisted those newfangled computer things were nothing but trouble. I remember Tiffany Corgan losing her entire senior thesis when a thunderstorm knocked out both of recently installed campus computers. Game. Set. Match.
Then a year later, I became acquainted with the office’s old Apple Macintosh at my first job out of school, its glowing monochrome gently ushering me into a new technological future filled with easy corrections and (almost) effortless dot-matrix printing.
Since then, I’ve seen so many iterations of Windows, Macs, and even a few Linuxes. I’ve seen flip phones become proto-smart phones become release after release of iPhones. With every technological stride, with every new piece of hardware, with every software innovation, I bought into the promise of easier writing. However, as is usually the case with tricksters, each next-best-thing makes the elusive pot of gold that much sparkly-er and harder to grab.
While process and mechanics may improve, the simple act of putting one word after another remains constant. This is why technology’s siren song can easily shipwreck us on the rocks. We are seduced into focusing on how the next major release or long-anticipated update will finally be The One to solve our problems. But we are looking at it all wrong. Our problem isn’t how we record our words, but rather how we craft them.
Now before I start hearing words like “Luddite” or “Gutenberg Hater,” I want to say I am not anti-technology. Anything which can free up our mind to spend more effort on stringing words together gets a big thumbs-up from me. But I have to be very conscious to not get swept up in finding the definitive device or app–and the definitive ones after those–at the expense of just sitting down and writing. By all means, make technology your servant. Just don’t let it become your master.