Write like you're talking to a friend. A friend you're so excited to see that you don't care about punctuation, spelling, or sophisticated aesthetics. Write like you're so excited/frustrated/angry/ exhilarated/despondent that you just want to tell them this story. You need to tell them this story. Write like it's 12:01 AM after the 2016 elections, or when you got your first job, or when you were stuck in an elevator, or that first time when you thought you were going to die, that first moment when you got a glimpse of mortality and you were snatched back to safety but your heart was still racing because death had breathed on you...just a bit...to let you know that He is closer than you think. Write to me like your cousins, aunties, and BFF's. Write to me like I'm sitting across from you at dinner, or lying next to you in bed.
This morning I was writing an email to a friend. I became aware of how fast I was typing. It sounded like machine gun. The staccato rhythm seemed to imprint itself on the sentences. My excitement sped my fingers across the keyboard. I remember a time when I still used a typewriter for high school papers. When I really got going, the typewriter would have this wonderful hesitation and then...
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!
All at once the letters would fly on to the page. The sound and kinetic feel was so beautiful. Some times I would gather myself to speed through a sentence just so I could see that burst of sound, steel, ink, and heat. If I really got going and sped through three or four sentences, I could feel the engine hum afterward, like it was gasping for air, like steam was coming from the machine. That was my first experience with the visceral feel of urgent writing.
DING, the bell would signal when it was time to start another line and then CLACK-SLIDE-CLACK right back on track. By the time I got to my senior year of high school, typewriters were replaced by computers. By the time I got to college, computer labs were becoming obsolete. Everyone had their own desktop and, in a few more years, those clunky overheated beasts were replaced by laptops. The laptops have gotten thinner and faster. But I don't think the current generation will ever know what it viscerally feels like to write with urgency, how writing can punch ink onto paper, make an engine whirl, make the fingers tingle from the CLACK-SLIDE-CLACK feel of inspiration.
This morning I was writing an email to a friend. I became aware of how fast I was typing. It sounded like machine gun. The staccato rhythm seemed to imprint itself on the sentences. My excitement sped my fingers across the keyboard. I remember a time when I still used a typewriter for high school papers. When I really got going, the typewriter would have this wonderful hesitation and then...
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!
All at once the letters would fly on to the page. The sound and kinetic feel was so beautiful. Some times I would gather myself to speed through a sentence just so I could see that burst of sound, steel, ink, and heat. If I really got going and sped through three or four sentences, I could feel the engine hum afterward, like it was gasping for air, like steam was coming from the machine. That was my first experience with the visceral feel of urgent writing.
DING, the bell would signal when it was time to start another line and then CLACK-SLIDE-CLACK right back on track. By the time I got to my senior year of high school, typewriters were replaced by computers. By the time I got to college, computer labs were becoming obsolete. Everyone had their own desktop and, in a few more years, those clunky overheated beasts were replaced by laptops. The laptops have gotten thinner and faster. But I don't think the current generation will ever know what it viscerally feels like to write with urgency, how writing can punch ink onto paper, make an engine whirl, make the fingers tingle from the CLACK-SLIDE-CLACK feel of inspiration.
No comments:
Post a Comment