The Good Old Days

Since I was asked to participate in Writers Who Kill, I have lost two computers, one to a virus, and my laptop to a broken screen. We had just retrieved my husband’s lap top from the tech-hospital after he spilled beer or coffee (it depends on who you ask) on the keyboard.


I think I am going to give up computers in favor of quill pens.

They go well with my period clothing.

Quill pens are inexpensive or free if you know where to look. They are easy to get since they are the byproduct of Thanksgiving dinner, turkey or goose flight feathers. To make your own, you will need the feathers, a pen knife and a bit of skill to turn out quills you can write with.

The ink can be scraped off the inside of a wood stove and mixed with a little water to form a sooty liquid.

Writing with one is easy after a bit of practice. They are smooth and hold enough ink to write a line and a half before they have to be re-dipped. They do have to be sharpened often, but that’s an easy chore since the pen knife is always at hand. I often take a quill pen, an ink jar and business card sized paper so people can try it out. Sometimes I autograph the books with the quill.

Much of what I write is set in the time of quill pens, but one of my stories features someone receiving the gift of her first fountain pen. Any of my characters would use pencils for every day work. No one much cared how things were spelled as long as the reader could figure out what was being said.

Not one of my characters used a computer. Not one had to put up with accidentally deleted documents. Not one ran out of printer ink and had to go buy more provided they had enough money. None had to search for internet connections. Or like me, couldn’t remember which thumb drive the document was on.

They did have to copy documents over by hand rather than printing another copy. They did have to check their own grammar and if they did want to make sure it was spelled correctly, resort to the dictionary rather than spell check. They had to slow down their thinking to match the speed of their writing.

And if they wanted to rearrange paragraphs or change the name of a character they had to rewrite the whole manuscript.

OK, so maybe I will buy a new screen for my lap top.