Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Thank you, Writing Gods

by Maria Geraci

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and as a writer, I have a LOT to be grateful for.

This is how my typical day goes:

1. I crank up my ultra fast coffee maker
2. sit down to my computer (where I catch up on emails, social networking and news of the day)
3. write till I get hungry,
4. nuke something for lunch.

But if I had been writing twenty-five years ago I would have:

1. made coffee in my Mr. Coffee Coffee Pot
2. gone to my desk and sat in front of my electric typewriter (making sure to copy everything later in case I lose my papers), keeping both my dictionary and my thesaurus at finger's length

3. checked my phone's answering machine every couple of hours (in case my editor or agent called)
4. written till I got hungry,
5. nuked something for lunch.






If I had been writing fifty years ago, I would have:

1. made coffee in my nifty percolator
2. gone to my desk and sat in front of my typewriter (making sure to make a carbon copy of all my pages), keeping my dictionary and thesaurus at fingers length
3. written till I got hungry,
4. made myself a sandwich, because heating something up would require too much time (unless it's a can of soup, and who wants that everyday?)

If I had been writing two hundred years ago today, I would have:

1. made myself a cup of tea
2. gone to my desk, hoping that it's situated next to a window so I can get some light, or lit my candle, sharpened my quill, refilled my ink well
3. written till I got hungry (or ran out of paper, or my hand got tired)
4. gone into the kitchen and prayed some food would miraculously appear from somewhere...

How did Jane Austen do it??

So on on this Thanksgiving Eve I'd like to give a big shout out to the Writing Gods for all our wonderful 21st century writing necessities:
lap top computers, track changes, spell check, email, Facebook, Twitter, microwave ovens, take out food, smart phones with unlimited texting and long distance call plans, e-publishing, dictionary.com, Skype, and I could go on.

What writing conveniences are you most grateful for? Anything you could absolutely not live without?


Maria Geraci writes fun, romantic women's fiction. Portland Book Reviews calls her latest release, The Boyfriend of the Month Club, "immensely sexy, immensely satisfying and humorous. " Her next novel, A Girl Like You, will be released August, 2012, by Berkley, Penguin USA. You can connect with her on her website, Facebook or Twitter.

16 comments:

  1. Maria, I still have a thesaurus and dictionary at my fingertips! (I'm so Old School.) Ah, I remember the days of writing on a Selectric! And carbon copies! Oy! I guess that makes me grateful for my computer (cutting and pasting is such a gift!) and my laser printer. Sigh. What a fun post! Wishing you and everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

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  3. Yes, Thank the One God all mighty for media and technological advancement!

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  4. He empowers the mind of so many intellectuals and individuals to create new innovation. Indeed, thank God for those technicians He inspired to invent the Microwave. And Thank God for inspiring the minds of Great Writers, wonderfully influential! Our God is an Awesome God! Happy Thanksgiving!

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  5. Susan, Without cut and paste I'd be a dead duck :)

    April, Happy Thanksgiving!

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  6. Ha! I couldn't survive without my trusty computer.

    Happy thanksgiving!!

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  7. LOL, Maria!!!
    I am really grateful for carryout and frozen pizzas...and getting to type on a computer (I remember the days of an electric typewriter and White-Out too well ;).
    Hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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  8. Preach it, sister. I bought a vintage typewriter as decoration and my toddler likes to play with it in the evenings. I'm always like, "TTL, I don't have to write on this thing!" Looks cute, though.

    I'm also grateful for phones I can turn off and Starbucks Instant coffee packs for a midday pick-up.

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  11. Excellent post. The gre writing tips can be useful for you if you are writing for official platforms. You can visualize by your writing and can achieve bets result.

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  12. We all should be thankful to God for giving us technological advancement. You can visualize by your writing and can achieve best result. And Thank God for inspiring the minds of Great Writers, wonderfully influential! read here if you want to know more about the quality writing services.

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