Everything old is new again.
A completely uncompensated review.
You will learn to type and you will like it.
When I was nine, my mother insisted that I learn to type as part of my OT (occupational therapy). I was in a segregated special education program for elementary school because of a congenital disability, now known as epidermolytic ichthyosis. OT was part of the available services at the school.
My rare form of ichthyosis (1 in 300K births) causes the body to produce skin cells much faster (100x) than is typical. In addition, the skin cells don’t break down properly, leading to flaking, callouses, and blisters wherever there is friction (like from walking). (This is NOT a picture of me, but my hands looked very much like this, and still do.)
In the early sixties, manual typewriters hurt my fingers, so my parents got me an electric Smith Corona typewriter. The interwebs say that Smith Corona doesn’t make typewriters anymore, but mine was similar to this:
Over the last forty years, I had a head start learning to do word processing, first on dedicated machines and then on pcs. With the rise of the interwebs came more and more occasions when typing became a valuable skill, but distractions of other online activities also raised their shiny heads. The more bored I got with my writing, the easier it was to wander off, play a game, or research a completely unrelated topic.
Enter Freewrite
Recently I splurged on a new device, a Freewrite Smart Typewriter, which only has one purpose — to write and save documents. No internet, no games…just writing.
So far, I have nothing but good things to say about it. Getting myself to the keyboard is still my problem, but I am producing A LOT more once there.
You can send your documents to the cloud and the email address of your choice. There is a small screen, but you are writing first drafts. You send these to your computer for further refinement and editing.
I am happy with the results since getting myself to produce the first draft is the biggest problem. I hope to develop a positive feedback loop to help me overcome my “blankscreenitis” and move many projects forward.
I may eventually need to learn speech-to-text software, but because I have been composing on a keyboard like the Freewrite Smart Typewriter’s since I was nine, my brain falls into this groove quickly.
It is a pricey “toy,” — nay, a tool! If it increases my productivity by 10–20%, it is a tool, and it’s worth it.
