We often dream of perfection, but we rarely, if ever, achieve it. There was one exceedingly minor business, in one all too brief period, in which I did attain such heights: my spelling prowess in my early school grades. I do not know if I ever attained the competency levels of those who excel atContinue reading “Flirting With Perfection: Spelling It Out”
Tag Archives: word processors
The Physical Dimensions of Writing
Writing is a physical activity. This fact is quite well known to schoolchildren who write–with pencils and pens–diligently, and at length on their notebooks. (It must have been known too, to Georges Simenon, whose fingers must have needed dousing in ice water after his daily ritual of prolific pencil-fueled writing.) But it is even commonContinue reading “The Physical Dimensions of Writing”
Writing: The Tools Change, the Neurosis Endures
Philip Hensher has written a book–The Missing Ink–on handwriting. In it, according to Jeremy Harding, he: [T]akes the view that we impress our individuality on a page when we make signs with a pen or pencil, that our culture is reaffirmed as we persist in the practice, and that the production of handwritten texts isContinue reading “Writing: The Tools Change, the Neurosis Endures”
Distraction and Writing: Pen and Keyboard Tales
A couple of days ago, I wrote my post on fountain pens with, er, a fountain pen; this one is being written in the old-fashioned way, on a keyboard, in the WordPress blogging tool/scratchpad. Writing a few hundred words with a fountain pen was a revelatory experience in several ways. (I realize this is self-indulgentContinue reading “Distraction and Writing: Pen and Keyboard Tales”
The Return of the Ink-Stained Finger: Writing with a Fountain Pen
As a youngster, I used fountain pens to write. I started my school career by writing in pencil, and then at some point, we were switched over to fountain pens by fiat. School work had to be done in ink; ball-pens didn’t count; and that was that. I do not remember my first shopping tripContinue reading “The Return of the Ink-Stained Finger: Writing with a Fountain Pen”
Samir Chopra 