David Elliott's Blog

Out of nowhere this morning, I found myself thinking back to this clunky Smith Corona PWP425 word processor I had back in 1991. I used it to write stuff as an angsty 19-year old dork, often in an, um, altered state of mind, back in my pre-military days in Titusville, Florida. (I think I actually have some of the cringeworthy stuff I wrote back then, but I don’t dare read it…the embarrassment might be too much.)

Anyway, I chuckled at the memory, but it made me think about how the technology has advanced in a pretty insane manner over the last few decades.  This prompted a little journey down memory lane that I thought I’d share here, because why not?

Hand cramps, ya’ll.

I started writing in elementary school, which was *cough, cough* a long time ago. It was pen and paper back then…well, pencil, so I could erase and correct things. I wrote silly little science fiction/fantasy stories then. I was fascinated with time travel and other worlds and the Choose Your Own Adventure books, like a lot of pre-pubescent boys. I wish I still had some of the stories I wrote back then. It would be fun to revisit a time in my life when I was just young and idealistic and happy with writing about dragons and rocket-powered cars.

Around 1985-ish, mom got me a Commodore 64. At the time, it never occurred to me that I could write ON A COMPUTER. My Commodore 64 was basically a video game machine for me – those wacky old text-based adventure games. Zork and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy were my favorites. I played them pretty often, which wasn’t exactly writing, but it did make you the protagonist of a story, which was pretty awesome.

Old, even when I was young.

When I wasn’t fighting orcs or trying to figure out how to get a Babel Fish in my ear, I’d sneak off to mom’s office and use her old IBM 11c electric typewriter. It was a relic even then (originally released in 1959), but I loved it – the steady hum, the clunking of the carriage return, the CHUNK! of each keystroke. I never got much writing done on it, aside from maybe some papers for school, but it sure was fun to use.

Then it was the late 80s and early 90s. My youthful idealism turned into your typical teen angst. I got a driver’s license and a car. Girls were no long gross; they were things of wonder that I wanted to touch, often. I quit listening to Top 40 and started listening to Metallica. Like my hormoes, technology was blowing up – mom had a car phone. You can make a phone call from the CAR? What is this voodoo? It truly was the future.

1991 style.

As such, mom (who encouraged my writing) bought me the aforementioned Smith Corona PWP425. It was a thing of beauty – a keyboard and a monochrome screen and a printer, all in one handy-dandy unit. A disk drive for me to save all of my IMPORTANT WRITINGS. I loved that thing and used it often. The files saved in some sort of weird ASCII format, but as I mentioned, I was able to convert some of them over to Word when I transitioned to desktop computers. Looking back, it probably would have been better had I just burned those disks…but, I keep telling myself, embrace the past; it made me what I am today. Blah, blah, blah.

Minesweeper? Sure, I’ve got 2 hours to kill.

Around 1993 or so, I got my first PC…I don’t remember the brand, but I set it up in my dorm room at my first assignment in the Air Force, Patrick AFB in Cocoa Beach, FL. It was a fairly wondrous machine – I could play video games with real graphics (Castle Wolfenstein, anyone?) and Windows 3.1 was amazingly advanced. When it was writing time, Word made it easy for me to throw down all my bad poetry and angsty ramblings. Ah, to be an unproductive 21-year old again.

Making life…easier.

Fast forward through the 90s, the early 2000s, to now. I’ve got a Macbook Pro, an iPad, an iPhone. Within seconds, I can grab any one of those items and press a few buttons and there are the words, accessible on all the devices. I can read or write a book anywhere, anytime. I can do all my research with some more button taps. The programs tell me if I spell a word wrong, if my sentence is a fragment, if my subjects and verbs disagree. It’s really pretty wondrous most of the time, and maddeningly frustrating some of the time.

I guess what I’m rambling toward is, prespective. When I was 11 years old and hammering away on mom’s IBM typewriter, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Now, if I sat down at a typewriter, I’d be rather worried about things – only a single paper copy? Did I spell that word correctly? Sh*t, I forgot to double-space that paragraph!

Now, everything is everywhere, formatted properly, backed up, ready to be opened at any second. No eraser dust, no hand cramps, no uneven type, no mild high from the smell of Liquid Paper (although, I sort of miss that). Hell, with just a few more clicks, I can publish whatever I’ve written and have it in paperback in my hand within a week. That’s pretty amazing, when you think about it.

Of course, the argument could be made that this has made it far too easy to innundate the world with crap – I mean, do we really need to know everyone’s instant thoughts about anything/everything? Do I care what you had for dinner? Am I interested in your paranormal-espionage-zombie-post-apocolyptic-historical romance-picture book for toddlers? Well, that’s another rambling post.

In the meantime, CHECK ME OUT ON TWITTER AND FACEBOOK AND GOODREADS AND AMAZON AND SHARE MY LINKS AND BUY MY SELF-PUBLISHED NOVELS (cherokee spleen, available 11/12/13!) AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!!1!!

Smile. Life is peachy-keen.

cherokee spleen has a release date!

Mark your calendars for 11/12/13!

Click here for more details.

The people have spoken.

It’s 2013; I’m approximately 120 days from retiring from the Air Force after 21 years.

Twenty-one years, man – that’s a long time.

Now it’s time to begin the next chapter in the book of David Elliott, and that chapter is, well, writing. Writing has been my dream career for a long, long time.  Now, I’m in a position to give it a serious go, to write like a maniac and see if it’s a hobby or a career.

Hence, this website.  I’ve got many stories in varying stages of completion, and in order to maximize my audience, I need something the kids call a web presence…hello, david-elliott.net.

So, this site will be updated regularly, populated with many things, mostly writing-related.  What I’m writing, what I’m doing with said writing, excerpts of the writing.  Things like that.

I hope it’s informative, or at the very least, mildly interesting for you.  Feel free to click around and see what’s going on, say hi, leave me a message, send me your 18th century zombie romance espionage thriller ideas.

It could be worse.