That's what I wondered when I sat down at the computer after putting my son to bed.
When Jane wrote her wonderful novels she didn't have Word or Works on a lightening fast computer. Heck, she didn't even have a typewriter. She had the good ol' pen and paper. Would she be afraid(although it's hard to think of Jane being afraid of anything) to use it and still stick to what she knew?
I did a personal experiment a few months ago when I was in a stage of "All Austen, all the time" where I wrote only by longhand(aka using pen and paper). I thought I'd see what it would be like to write as Jane did. To my amazement I was less intimidated by a blank piece of paper than I was by the blinking cursor on the computer screen. It was easier to write my novel using a pen and paper, although not faster, than using the computer. Granted, it is a little embarrassing and time consuming to count each word to see if I've made my word count goal but it seems to flow better when I don't use the computer. There wasn't the mocking of the blinking cursor and the blank page staring me in the face waiting for words to be added to it. Although, maybe a blank piece of paper could be hard to face too.
I can't say I'll stop using the computer(obviously) but when I'm stuck I need to just pull out the pen and paper and write until my fingers fall off, especially since writing at all has been a challenge for me lately, on the computer or otherwise.
I have to say that the issue at hand would be that you can type faster than you can write. When writing long hand on pen and paper, you have more time to think not only about the next word, but the next three or four words. Even on a type writer, you still experience the issue of moving faster than you can think.
ReplyDeleteI am sure that if Jane had access to modern conveniences and technology, she would adapt and utilize it. However, there are authors out there that still shun modern type writers and computers in favor of the old clickity clack type writers of old, if only to have it ready to be sent to a publisher.