Old Writer, New Tricks

Well, middle-aged writer is more accurate. I’m not 103 yet!

I have made a transition in my writing life that I never thought I would accomplish. I have :::gasp!::: finally begun typing in black font on a white screen. It’s almost like typing on white paper. Amazing. Why didn’t I think of this before?

Back in the Blue Ages, when WordPerfect was the word processing program of choice, I became used to typing white font onto a blue screen. One day My Liege came home from work and announced that his employer had converted to this strange new program called Word. We were getting a new computer, and he didn’t want to have to know how to work two word processing programs (plus, back in the Blue Ages the hard drive on our computer was so small that it didn’t have room for two word processing programs). So it was decided that we were moving to Word. I wailed, I gnashed my teeth, I believe I even pulled out some of his hair. I LOVED WordPerfect. For a writer, it’s amazingly simple compared to Word. The Reveal Codes alone was enough to keep me committed to WordPerfect for life.

However, then I learned that not only had my husband’s employer moved to Word, but Word was the program of choice pretty much across the publishing industry. Teeth ground down to gums, I made the transition. But one thing I refused to give up was typing in white font on a blue screen. Typing in black on a white screen hurt my eyes. Plus, it didn’t look pretty. It looked business-like, not creative. It stunk.

Lo and behold, Word has a “white font on blue screen” option for those of who were dragged kicking and screaming away from WordPerfect. I used that option religiously until this year.

Two things happened. (1) My eyes are older and weaker than they used to be, so suddenly the black font on white screen doesn’t seem so harsh; and (2) as my frequent blog readers know, my desktop died. I had a full manuscript request, so I was forced to work on My Liege’s and Youngest Son’s laptops. They both type black on white. Afeared of screwing up their laptops somehow, and noting that the laptop screen wasn’t as big (and therefore not as blinding) as my 19-inch desktop LCD monitor, and rationalizing that I was only editing not creating, I boldy went where my fingers had not gone before and typed black on white. And after a few days it wasn’t that bad.

Then the weirdest thing happened. I loaded Word onto my new desktop, opened a document, cursed that the default was once again black on white, went into the options panel and changed it to white on blue, then…decided the blue screen was too bright. Yes, finally, finally, after all these years, I have made the conversion. It will be interesting to see if it sticks. Having submitted that requested full manuscript, I am now returning to revisions on my single title. Revisions I can manage typing black on white. I do most of my revising with pen and ink, anyway. But when I finish those revisions and finally start crafting a new story, that will be the real test.

Have you forced yourself to learn new writer tricks? The other biggie for me was going from two spaces after a period to one. When I finally decided to make the move, it only took my fingers three or four days to become accustomed to not typing that extra space. I thought it would take forever. Not so.

Maybe there’s hope for me with the tiny keyboard on my new netbook, after all. It’s replacing my old AlphaSmart, and if I could type on that, I should be able to type on the netbook keyboard. But I did order a mouse to go with, and I can’t wait until it arrives. I still absolutely abhor touchpads. Maybe someday I’ll get used to them..but not now.

By Cindy

I'm irritated because my posts won't publish.

10 comments

  1. WOW, Cindy, that’s a long time!

    I confess, I never understood why people were so attached. I HATED HATED HATED the aesthetics of WordPerfect, and found Word’s interface so much more intuitive. I abandoned WP as soon as I possibly could and never went back. LOL

    But I totally get the conversion thing. I fought the two-space thing until I started editing and writing nonfiction stuff professionally, and one space was required. I can’t say I’m consistent (see? I’m using two spaces here!) but it’s so easy to find/replace two spaces to one.

    I also wrote in Courier for many years because I always landed at exact page count, and knowing exactly where I was in the manuscript was important to my “process.” But now Word shows the word count write on the screen, so I’m at TNR 13 (14 is too big). That was an easier transition. 🙂

  2. Yes, Natalie, it IS a long time. I just loved that pretty blue screen, LOL.

    You’re one of the first writers I’ve heard of (in fact, I think you’re the first!) to have preferred Word to WP when you first made the conversion. I would have never made the conversion if I hadn’t felt it was required, but I have no problem with Word other than Reveal Codes on WP revealed a lot more codes!

    I’m totally consistent in the one space after period thing. I couldn’t believe how easy that was to give up. Lazy fingers, I guess. For older manuscripts, like you I use the find and replace to fix the two spaces.

    I’ve also made the conversion to TNR! There goes our GMTA again. I look at manuscripts differently in Courier compared to TNR. Courier reminds me so much of something that’s “unfinished,” no matter how polished the writing is. The other day I opened an old Word doc written in Courier that “nearly” made it a few years ago – and I thought, “this is crap!” I wonder if I’d feel the same way if I’d converted the manu to TNR first. (That’s an issue to be discovered later this year).

    I write in TNR 12. For me, I made the conversion once the majority of publishing houses started going by computer count rather than page count. Courier New was great for getting a correct page count. But the industry has changed, and I needed to change along with it. Now that I’m used to it, I far prefer writing in TNR. Esp. because I print out a lot. TNR saves paper.

  3. I started with WP, but my background was white. I adjusted to Word without a problem, and now I’m in 2007 Word. I don’t like it as much as 2003 Word, but I’m persevering.

    I’ve changed to TNR 12 now, too. Finally. lol For a long time I wrote in Courier, than transposed it to TNR when I was done. With my last ms., I just started to write in TNR. At first I didn’t realize I’d done it. When I did, I just left it. Every once in a while, I do think of changing to 14 instead of 12, so I can read it better. So far I haven’t done it.

  4. Edie, I have a 19-inch screen (I do most of my writing on my desktop computer), so TNR 12 is plenty big. Well, I zoom it in, I don’t leave it at 100%. I like it to fill the whole screen!

    I didn’t mind Word 2007 when I was using Youngest Son’s laptop in January. But I didn’t order Office 2007 for my new computer or netbook because the 2010 update is coming soon and so I didn’t see the point. I’m sticking with my 2003 until I update to the new 2010 version – that’s what my publishers want me to submit in, anyway. So if I had 2007 I’d just have to use the 2003 compatability mode, anyway.

    When I took in my new computer to have files transferred, the geek told me that business seems to still prefer 2003. My dh has 2007 at his work but routinely uses compatability mode because so many of his customers are hanging on to 2003.

  7. Okay, first, OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE I SAID WRITE INSTEAD OF RIGHT! *iz mortified*

    I love Word 2007. Won’t upgrade to 2010 because it seems most of the features are things I wouldn’t use.

    I’m a contrarian. 🙂 But I doubt that surprises anyone! 🙂

  8. I have no idea what the features of 2010 are. I just didn’t see the point in upgrading to 2007 when I knew 2010 was coming out.

    It doesn’t surprise me that you’re a contrarian! Walk your own road. That’s the right thing to do.

  10. Strangely, because I’m so brilliant, I knew you were talking about new features. I meant to write that I don’t know what the NEW features are, LOL.

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