I should be thankful I am in the Central time zone, this way I have an extra hour to poke away at this keyboard. This may change in the very near future. My one-fingered click clack, I mean. I’ll stay in the Central time zone, probably die here. Not in the suburbs, somewhere back in the city. I leave that up to karma. I’m looking down at my fingernails, like a guy testifying at the mob trial currently transpiring here, or some trying-to-be-serious comedian on a late night HBO special. I’m putting off what I want to say, to confess. Proactive contrition, if you will. Its a world of iPods and nanopods and other things I do not even know how to spell correctly. Some phone that moves like a three card monte dealer shuffling the deck. People who don’t have writing programs on their computers but they can text the basics for TREASURE ISLAND or CANDIDE to a friend, while the quiz is being handed out. Virtual Cliff notes. In a few weeks, the 25th anniversary showing of BLADERUNNER will be in our theaters. Some nights, when the pain is bad and I try to keep the voices at bay because when PK Dick’s goddamn voices started jibber-jabbering, he wrote about the damn things. I’m stuck with them just floating in my thalamus, as my one good finger tries and puts their rants down about as fast as Abe Vigoda’s character Phil Fish taking a witness statement on BARNEY MILLER. Nights with the pain, after ten or twelve hours at the plant, I’d fall on my knees in worship if I saw the floating cube with the Oriental woman selling little green pills (if I recall the color correctly, and it was probably a damn stool softener, not some pain killer, oh the jolly jape of madness!)from BLADERUNNER. I want to finish this. I feel as if I am tapping from the inside of my ribcage.
When I take my eventual dirt nap in the time zone I alluded to, hopefully the corpse found in a timely manner so as to be stuffed and mounted and auctioned off every year so that I can be owned and taken to conventions and banquets by Beth or Brian or David or Sully, depending on who ponies up the most money for the charity of their choice, I want to be remembered as the guy who did it the only way he could. Rather…I wanted to be remembered that way. I’ve always been content with my body of work, even if it meant ignoring the voices of envy, of all those who type faster, those who get everything purged while my output is that of a 48 year old man with an enlarged prostate. I wanted the vanity, if that is the word, to be dead without ever enhancing my manner of typing. I have indeed dictated to writer Yvonne Navarro and teacher Janet Winkler while I was recovering from the car accident in 1989. I often get offers from people to type something for me, and right now, Kate Sterling is retyping a long essay I wrote for the defunct ED McBAIN COMPANION, just so I can get it on disk and try and whore it elsewhere.
Proactive contrition, my friends. I absolve myself from what I will do this coming week. I am surrendering a huge part of me, a truly enormous portion of my mind and soul, and purchasing Dragon Naturally Speaking 9.0. I so so so do not want to do this, to become a robot, to become a voice that will speak faster than my stream of consciousness and likely fuck up my stories better than the meds I take for being bipolar. But I have to do this, I have nonfiction assignments from Salem Press, a poetry collection from Annihilation Press, and if it kills me, I will write CITY WITH NO SECOND CHANCES, scenes of which float in my head like slices of deja vu when I am awake or asleep. I have an agent, a good one, and I know he will be on my @$$ like a good agent should. I haven’t had an agent in a decade and I’ll do this fellow right, and I’ll do all of you, my readers, right, as well. But I feel that I am doing myself a great wrong.
I have discussed this with many people, most feel it is about the body of work I still have in my various brain cells, locked up by a palsied caretaker. There are those who wouldn’t give my dilemma a second thoughts, those with the texting and the iPod shuffle. But this is a very hard thing for me. Turning over myself to a computer program.
For the greater good. Should there be a question mark there? As of October 15th, I will have been with America Online for ten years. Its a way of life for me now. Will Naturally Speaking be that way, as well. Or am I simply afraid that I will fail, that I do not have those stories in my head after all. Proactive contrition: Philip K. Dick, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest my sins, blah blah blah. I’m confessing my sins before I commit them. Next month you won’t be reading my type written word, you’ll be reading whatever the hell my voice tells the computer program.
And I hate myself for surrendering, all for the so-called Greater Good.
Happy October, my favorite month of the year. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll let a little bit of myself die before you hear from me again. Thanks for your time and patience. Your chattel, Wayne
12 Comments, Comment or Ping
Teresa
I get it Wayne, truly I do. Maybe though it will be less a surrender, more a tactical retreat.
I’ll see you next month, however the words get here.
Sep 28th, 2007
rjones
Don’t get discouraged with your new program. It will take a while to train, but just hang in there.
RCJ
Sep 28th, 2007
David Niall Wilson
You’ll do fine, Wayne-man. Seriously, I think you are assigning a bit too much importance to the physical act of typing. I used to feel the same way about my hand-written first drafts - felt that way when I gave up my self-correcting typewriter for a computer…that there was some disconnect that would ruin me forever. It all turned out to be another way for me to worry over nothing.
DNW
Sep 28th, 2007
Anonymous
*wipes away drool*
Oh, that’s my dream! The one where I can finally be able to let the thoughts out, describe the scenes, speak the words in my head without having to be in front of the computer that my kids always want to be on.
Yeah, I’m lazy. I grew up with pen and paper and a father who fixed typewriters for a living, so I learned touch typing at 10 or so. But the computer age….that’s been harder. To wit, I’m currently waiting for a nice kid to try and extract 3 years worth of data from the hard drive that crashed last week. (ouch) While I was swapping from AOL before I hooked up the new computer that would let me back-up my work. (there’s probably a lesson there somewhere…)
I’m sure you won’t lose anything…any more than I will when I finally get round to outlining before I dive in with the writing.
But I bet teaching your ‘dragon’ to understand what you’re saying will be easier than teaching me to outline.
Best of luck and let us know how it goes.
Shell
Sep 28th, 2007
Janet Berliner
Here’s a different perspective: You’re a most
fortunate man in that you have an American
accent. I, too, am plagued by much pain and
fingers that often obey my neuromuscular
malfunction instead of my brain. I wish I could
use the Dragon. However, no version thereof
will recognise my accent.
I’ve written books holding one hand with the other and using one finger on the keys.
Trust me when I say that you will untimately worship at the shrine of that which in any way simplifies your life and increases your productivity.
Besides, you can still use the single-fingingered approach for rewrites.
Best of luck, Sir.
–Janet
Sep 28th, 2007
Brian Hodge
I know it weighs heavily on you, Wayne, that you feel this is a surrender, and though I’ve been aware of your intention to make this change for several weeks, it took awhile to shift into a frame of reference that let me better empathize with why:
Four autumns ago, the outer 2 fingers on my left hand experienced the onset of a focal dystonia … a neurological glitch that made them want to curl inward.
Typing wasn’t badly affected, but forget about playing piano music like baroque, with a really active left hand. I could’ve programmed a sequencer to electronically play the left-hand parts while I played the right hand live. But that would’ve felt pointless, awful, like cheating. A capitulation.
So, in some tiny way, I think I know why this rankles you so.
After a couple years, the dystonia largely self-corrected, something it wasn’t supposed to do. If it hadn’t, by now I probably would’ve made peace with Plan B.
Because, ultimately, better that than silence.
In the end sum, the pencil, the pen, the keys, the microphone … they’re just tools of conveyance and convenience, my friend. They’re only there to serve the words, and the heart and soul and love and anger behind them.
Better the Dragon than the empty page.
Sep 28th, 2007
Wayne Allen Sallee
Thanks for all the comments, even the mysterious Teresa who sometimes visits my home blog. I always feel as if my posts are the most disjointed things since Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. I’m glad you are all going along with me. Brian, I didn’t know about your fingers, but you’ve been here in spirit holding me up by the shoulders more often than you might think. Janet, I don’t have an accent, but I AM starting to slur words because my right muscles in my face have started twitching when I’m under a lamp, like here at the computer. The last time I tried the program, the computer INSISTED I was Wayne Allen Sailor and I could not correct it. But I do understand your predicament. RJ and Shell, thanks, and David, just keep telling me you’ll beat the hell out of me whenever I email you about wanting to bail out because the aliens (or Mark Rainey) are outside my window…better the program than the blank screen. Better I write or I die. Quite simple. But I am still scared. Guess its the right month for it, huh? Be safe, all of you.
Wayne
Sep 28th, 2007
Janet Berliner
I’m writing my first new story in almost
a year. I understand. I even understand
the twitching which, for years, was one of
my symptoms. Please keep on keeping on
Wayne. We need your wisdom. –Janet
Sep 28th, 2007
Elizabeth Massie
All the best with the techno change, Wayne. Like others have said, I bet you come to really enjoy the voice program. It won’t change your storytelling ability. It won’t alter your imagination. It won’t kill the stories that are there, scratching to get out. They just won’t have to scratch as hard.
Sep 29th, 2007
Martel
Wayne -
Did you know that for only having one functional finger you still type faster than most people I know? (This continues to amaze me, btw.)
I know that giving into the voice activated software is hard because you have to come to terms with the fact that your body can’t do the things you want it to. You have to admit that you can’t control your ailments. I liken what you go through on a daily basis to being imprisoned, except your prison is your body and how to you fight for freedom against that? Some people would say to “Let go and let God,” which would be helpful if it were as simple as that.
Since I don’t have any practical advice, all I can say is know that your friends are here when you need to vent and if you ever need something typed, let me know.
Martel
Sep 29th, 2007
polarpaul
The greeks often lamented the invention of writing in lieu of the oral tradition. Each generation has struggled with their own mortality through the passing of the literary torch from one generation to the next. Old habits die hard.
The bottom line is that your readers will be looking at the words, not how they got there.
Best of luck in learning how to use this tool effectively.
Sep 29th, 2007
Anonymous
The last time I tried the program, the computer INSISTED I was Wayne Allen Sailor and I could not correct it.
I’m sorry, but that’s funny…:D
I’ve read the body isn’t helping. But consider that I slur my words after more than half a glass of wine and I whistle my esses now that I have a plate to replace my two front teeth. I need my glasses to find them in the morning. And that’s after I find a way to get moving again because I’ve probably ’slept funny’ so I’m as creaky as an old staircase.
And I ain’t fifty yet.
Think of your ‘dragon’ this way: it’s a way of not letting the problem beat you.
See, my first dream was to take the dance world by storm. Then life happened and my dad died (5 years ago now) and I woke up. On a second husband and a second set of kids and I just plain old wasn’t free to pursue that dream. And at forty something I wasn’t exactly in a position to dance my way into hearts.
But I had to do SOMETHING. You can only bury yourself for so long before it drives you mad. Before you run screaming into the middle distance.
Of course, in my case, I wouldn’t have far to go cause we can see the middle of nowhere from our house…
So…so I had to reach further back and find another dream. And I found one. One that got put away when hormones took over my tiny little body. Back then (in the dawn of pre-history) I wanted to write. I read voraciously and I remember wanting to give someone else that joy too. That escape. That vicarious thrill.
*shrugs*
I’m learning. I’m learning how to use the damn computer. I’m learning I better remember to back up my stuff somewhere else in case it crashes. How to use the internet. How to use the word processing program. How to fix it when I screw up. Which is very hard when you don’t know what you might have done wrong in the first place…oh yeah - rule number 1 - never sneeze with your fingers on the keyboard…
Sometimes it feels like there’s too much to learn. Even just writing a story isn’t that easy. Protags, antags, structure, grammar (heck, I haven’t met grammar in 30 years!), first acts, character arcs….theme! Good God, I used to think theme was what you decorated the gym like for the school dance. And I still have trouble thinking about dangling participles as anything other than an amusing cartoon.
If I had known five years ago how much there was to learn…that I’d have to learn how from some isolated farmhouse…that it would take years before I had anything worth wasting postage on…
I still would have done it.
Because I HAVE to. Because I NEED to.
Now that I’ve unbolted the door…
(rool nuber 2 - neber stan behine de door…oh by dohz..)
Look for the funny and you’ll get through…really.
Take heart, dear one.
Shell
Sep 29th, 2007
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