Qwerty -Christy

When I was in high school, back in the early 80s when we wore tight jeans with names like San Francisco Riding Gear and worked the kinks out of what would later become known as the Camel Toe, the future of computers seemed dubious. We had a couple machines in a computer lab somewhere, touched mostly by the boys who took AP Math, so we thought of them as giant, non-portable calculators. “Those things will never catch on,” we’d say, rolling our blue-shadowed eyes.

I had to take Mrs. McCracken’s Typing Basics junior year (yes, on a real live typewriter a la Mark “I was the first person in the world to apply the typemachine to literature" Twain). I couldn’t see the point. I distinctly remember remarking, “I don’t need to know how to type, I’m going to have a secretary…” I can’t recall what I thought I was going to grow up to be, but whatever it was it involved having a secretary to touch those loathsome keys.

When I saw that I had Typing right after morning break, I hatched a brilliant plan. Mrs. McCracken always wrote the day’s lesson on the board, so I’d go in during break and pretend to practice while I’d really be carefully typing the day’s lesson slowly, without mistakes. Then in class when we’d have our time test, I’d just type crazily like a 4 year old, throw away that gobbledygook, and then turn in the previously constructed work. I aced the class and came out completely unable to type. My foresight could not have been cloudier.

So now, as a freelance writer who is paid to type, I still hunt and peck. I’m fast, sure, really fast actually, but in a jerky, nonsensical, start-and-stop way. A lot like I drive. Most disappointing, though, is the pain my cheating has brought on; I have carpel tunnel in both wrists because of the weird way that I hold my hands as I pounce on letters. A constant, chronic reminder that The Adults were right—cheating only hurts the cheater.

Slow Fiction Brain - Julie

I have a friend, I'll call her 'Jennie,' who wrote a book in four months. I have another friend, I'll call her 'Christy,' who is right on her heels, closing in on the end of a book that she started in January. Both of these writers have ALREADY WRITTEN AN ENTIRE BOOK. And these are tight, high-quality reads, the gripping page-turning kind that are destined to be some kid's all time favorite made-me-love-reading YA books. Both of these writers bring scads of beautiful pages to share on writing group Wednesdays.

Hey, I’m writing a book, too! This week I brought one paragraph.

Usually, I am shockingly adept at turning any ordinary circumstance into something that is both bad and my fault, but this time, I just couldn't muster it. I loved writing that paragraph. It was about an empty hard-wood floored Community Center, and I just rambled around in that room, in that paragraph, for an hour, my mind peeking into every corner, exploring every shaft of light, taking my sweet time, with unwritten scenes of my book sometimes appearing right before my eyes.

I felt relaxed, which is different from the way I usually feel when I write, with the previously mentioned thin layer of sweat, and my nimble secretary fingers mocking my slow fiction brain. "Come on come on let's go,” my fingers yell, “something needs to happen here, yah, yah, you described that enough, let's goooooooo!" Well, you know what my brain said to my fingers that afternoon? "You know what Ms. Digits? Slow down. You are going to keep pace with me from now on, NOT the other way around. Now about this Community Center..."