Читать книгу Script Tease - Eric Nicol - Страница 9

TOOLING UP

Besides divine afflatus, what other gear do you need in order to become the next Margaret Atwood or Stephen King or even the author of a raging letter to the editor of the publication that rejected your poem?

First, you need to have access to a word processor. Is it realistic to hope that you can process your words yourself, with God’s guidance or a helpful secretary who really needs the money? Alas, no way. The ugly fact is that to be a writer today you must have a meaningful relationship with a computer. Nobody knows how William Shakespeare was able to get along without it and still have a sex life. Apparently, he had to write everything in longhand.

I sense eyebrows being raised. Well, class, longhand is, or was, a form of handwriting. Handwriting is what you do if you endorse a cheque. Still unclear? Then let’s just say that writing longhand not only takes more time than typing but reveals more about the writer’s own character than a graphologist would feel comfortable reporting.

The hazard of handwriting was first recognized by Omar Khayyám:

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Why? Because Omar couldn’t use the delete key! He may not have even owned a computer. If he didn’t, it was surely false economy. That’s why all members of this class are urged to make whatever sacrifice of lifestyle — food, drink, clothes, child support, cheesecake — necessary for you to be able to afford to buy this sine qua non: the PC.

And a printer. (Why should we deny ourselves the thrill of seeing our work in print, just because it’s not yet ready?)

Note: self-publication will be dealt with, severely, in a later section. If your computer is indisposed, it is normal to make a rough copy in pencil. For those of you unfamiliar with this writing instrument: a pencil is a lead-bearing device normally held between the fingers when not being chewed during creative ecstasy. The tip of the pencil makes physical contact with paper, creating arousal more sensuous than that provided by the PC.

In moments of divine afflatus, however, the pencil lead may break (coitus interruptus). Hence the need for a pencil sharpener, a rotary instrument that happily provides relief from the tension of composition, as well as a quantity of sawdust that can be used to mulch potted plants.