Another idea struck me this morning and decided why not double dip? This is what happens when a person wakes before 04:00 with her mind on spin cycle. A hearty thank you to my mother who sat me down with my brother’s Gregg textbook and insisted I learn to type. I argued, “What does an artist need with typing?”
PHOTO PROMPT © Jeff Arnold
Genre: Questionable
Word Count: 100
KEYSTROKES
“Q is for quill which is what Charles Dickens used to write his stories.
W is for the white-out I would need were I using a manual machine.
E is for happy endings.
R is for ruminations, renderings and rebuttals. It’s also the first letter in my name.
T is for typewriter. Imagine writing a novel in longhand. Hats off to Christopher Latham Sholes.
Y is for yesteryear when life was simpler. Was it really?”
Rochelle studied her brightly-lit desktop screen. “Not so sure about this one.” She tapped the delete key. “Or maybe…” She hit CTRL Z. “Viva technology.”
Could I avoid history? I think not. CLICK HERE.
The reason Jeff took the picture. 😉
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple 
Watch out for those late night — early morning ideas! You usually forget them if you don’t have a pencil nearby!
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Dear Roger,
How lovely to see you here in Purpleville since we’ve used so many of your wonderful photos (and have offered so many more for me to choose from)! I’m sure a few late-night revelations have fallen into oblivion. Good advice. Thank you for stopping by.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Love your double dip story today. Qwerty is such a quirky word. Quite a quip. Carry on.
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Dear Jan,
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed my double dip. Might as well dip here since I can’t dip into chlorinated water. WAAAAAAAH
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I just started going through today’s email, from newest to oldest, so I haven’t read the first story yet. Great fun. And Mom knew best 🙂
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Dear Linda,
And here it is Saturday and I’m just getting around to replying to comments. 😉 Yes, on this one, Mom did know best. As I sit at my keyboard day after day, I thank her. 😀 Thank you.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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I went on to read the article and OMG I must be older than I thought 😂 Now I remember using the l key for a one. It was marginally easier than doing apostrophe-backspace-period for an exclamation point! I was so thrilled the first time I got a typewriter with that one/exclamation point!
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Dear Genia,
I thought I was pretty hot stuff when my parents bought me an IBM electric. 😉 Thank you for reading and commenting.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Are there prizes for other renderings of QWERTY?
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I hadn’t given it much thought, Neil. I’d say a sense of deep satisfaction should be the prize. 😉 With a roll of toilet paper.
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The cutest thing. Love it👌👌👌
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Many thanks, Sabina. 😀
Shalom and continued health,
Rochelle
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That’s a lovely picture, Rochelle. I don’t know how young people type at any speed using two fingers. —- Suzanne
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Dear Suzanne,
Actually it seems kids these days “type” with two thumbs on a phone. 😉 Thank you.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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You’re right, they do. 😀 — Suzanne
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I am two finger type artist. And i love your double dip story. Very nostalgic.
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Dear Neel,
Many thanks for double comments. 😉
Shalom and good health,
Rochelle
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Ha ha! Viva technology!
I do love typewriters. I just love ‘delete’ and ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ a lot more … 😉
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I love to see so many styles of writing. Glad that you double dipped
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Here’s to the many styles of writing on this platform!
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Dear Mike,
That’s the beauty of Friday Fictioneers. Different writing styles. Different cultures. It’s why I keep it going. Very selfish. 😀 Thank you.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Na’ama Y’karah,
Typewriters are nice to look at, aren’t they? Refer to my W for white-out. I love backspace. CTRL V/CTRL C are my friends. I’ve copied and pasted entire chapters. 😉 Thank you for tapping along.
Shabbat Shalom and continued good health,
Rochelle
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Yeah, me love all them function you mentioned. 🙂
Shabbat Shalom and keep well!
Na’ama
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Love the artwork Rochelle, such a talent – and you manage that without the Ctrl-Z fallback! 🙂
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Dear Iain,
CTRL Z has saved me many times. 😉 Thank you re my artwork. An interviewer once asked me which I preferred, writing or painting. I had to say in all honesty, they’re equal.
Shalom and continued health,
Rochelle
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Uh-oh! Double trouble. I like this one. I like a quirky story. Adding a little qwerty only makes it better.
I’m often jealous of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain and all the writers who came before the internet, television, or even radio. I think about how much more writing I could get done if it weren’t so easy to pick up my phone and get distracted with games or tab over to YouTube and get lost in more videos than I could watch in a lifetime. Of course, I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t move a paragraph or a chapter at will or look up a word or research the entirety of human knowledge by opening a new tab or run my novel through ProWritingAid and its ridiculously intense reports. What I call rewriting is editing. Before the word processor, it was actually rewriting.
I recently read “The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness, and the Love of Words” (retitled “The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary” in the United States and Canada) by Simon Winchester, which might be my new favorite book. In it, he talks about William Shakespeare never looking up a word or doing any research. It wasn’t an option back then. The dictionary didn’t exist. That makes what he accomplished so much more mind-blowingly amazing. That could also be why he coined so many words and phrases. “What word should I use here? Eh. I’ll make up one.”
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I never had a fear of using print research books, but I sure don’t miss having to scrap the whole rest of a chapter and retype it because I left something out. I grew up with manual typewriters, and now I don’t know what I’d do without copy-and-paste.
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I’m with you, Genia. Copy and paste are my friends. 😀
Shalom and continued good health,
Rochelle
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Dear Nobbin,
We do live in a different era, don’t we? I can’t imagine writing without the technology we have. I have moved entire chapters via copy and paste because they fit better in one place than another. In fact I’m in the process of doing that with a current WIP. And then there’s the tool in Word that allows you to search and find overused words. I could expound for hours. Thesaurus and Dictionary.com are my companions. Thanks to them my vocabulary continues to grow…evolve…flourish…expand…multiply…
Hey! Through the magic of technology, I could delete your comment. (But I would never do that because I enjoyed it. 😉 ) Thank you so much for being part of Friday Fictioneers.
Shalom and good health.
Rochelle
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Love it.
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Thank you, Sadje.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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You’re welcome Rochelle.
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I am old enough to remember using a typewriter… I never used a quill but once I wrote with a fountain pen… but though it does exist I have never let the computer interpret my speech… I think there is room for a future generation to wonder why we ever used a keyboard.
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Dear Bjorn,
I remember using fountain pens as a kid and thinking they were the greatest thing ever. With voice activation, you might be right about the future generations. Than you for reading and commenting.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Oh, I love this prompt and I love your typewriter. Clever with the qwerty, and I did enjoy reading about Mr Sholes. I did have to count your words though, don’t know why I bothered. Guess who I read today… Jennifer @ elmowrites
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Dear Ted,
I’ve also told Ms. Elmo that she should rejoin us. 😉 You checked my word count??? Gasp! You dared to doubt? You make me laugh. I couldn’t resist adding a touch of history. Thank you, my friend.
Shalom and good health,
Rochelle
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Ah yes typing exercises. I dodged those but the funny thing is I have typed so much I can touch type. Good skill to have!
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Dear Tanille,
I don’t profess to be the best touch typist, but I do a pretty snappy backspace. 😉 I am grateful to my mom for insisting I learn the basics. Thank you for typing your comment in the box. 😀
Shalom,
Rochelle
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The Muse visited twice. I have a job to get him out of bed for me.
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Dear Sandra,
Some days the magic works and some days it doesn’t. 😉 Thanks for commenting twice. 😀
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Now you’ve got me sitting here trying to think of a qwerty tale! Let me think ….
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Dear Keith,
It seems I inspired a few double dippers this week. 😀 Y knot? Thank you.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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I learned to type on a manual typewriter – not one so lovely as this though!
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Many thanks, Clare. 😀
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Lovely quirky story, and I loved the reveal. Your drawing is super. I wrote the whole of my first novel longhand. I found I had to because a keyboard put me into technical report mode, which was not very appealing for a novel!
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Dear Penny,
When I wrote my first short stories and first novel, I did a lot of longhand. Now, ironically, I find typing cathartic. I say whatever works for a person is what that person should do. 😉 Thank you.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle,
You are only allowed to double-dip when you give us an equally enchanting story as this one. There is something to writing in longhand… They say it helps with creativity. Let’s face it, once we’ve written it by hand, then type it, it will change and then we can really play, right? Cut/paste/CTRL-C/CTRL-Z…
Shalom and lotsa hand-written love
Dale
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Dear Dale,
Well, that was certainly a nice thing to say. No CRTL A/CTRL D here. 😉 I personally find typing cathartic. I rarely work in longhand these days. Although I do have a pen pal and we write in cursive. I like to stay in practice. 😀 Thank you.
Shalom and lotsa longhanded hugs,
Rochelle
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It really can be I love writing in longhand, in cursive. It’s going to become a lost art…
Always a pleasure.
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I’ve been trying to be more diligent about sending out handwritten notes. Hence my Christmas cards. 😉 Turned out to be a gift I gave myself.
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And that is a wonderful thing!
And those gifts mean so much, don’t they?
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Ah, how often CTRL-Z has saved my bacon (though usually after an accidental delete!).
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Dear Ali,
I agree. CTRL Z is a magnificent tool. Thank you for typing your comment in the box. 😉
Shalom,
Rochelle
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What does Ctrl Z do? I’m scared to try! And I did a typewriter-related doulbe entry today too.
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Dear Liz,
Blessed are the double-dippers for they shall have twice the fun. Ctrl Z will bring back the last thing you deleted. Much more forgiving than a typewriter. I use it often.
Shalom and continued good health,
Rochelle
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Loved this quirky qwerty piece. I write everything in longhand first. Takes forever but that’s how it is!
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Dear Miranda,
I used to write everything in longhand first and sometimes still do. However, more often than not, I find that my thoughts flow more freely when typing. Go figure. 😉 Thank you re my story.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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true that. 🙂
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Indeed, Plaridel. 😀
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Oh I love this. Very clever! Yay for ctrl z
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Dear Laurie,
I’d have to say ctrl c/ctrl v are the most used on this end. 😉 Thank you.
Shalom and continued health down under,
Rochelle
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Worth the double dip I think, Rochelle. Quills and white out, you range over the history of writing in one piece.
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Dear Michael,
My muse was prolific this week. 😉 Thank you for your kind comments.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Nicely done. I have never found out why the keyboard is laid out the way it is. I believe the science analysed the most common usage of the letters in the English language.
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Dear James,
I’ve never given much thought to the keyboard layout. Sort of like TV in my lifetime. It’s always been there. 😉 Thank you.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Very creative with a word that’s not used very often. Thanks for the smile..:)
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Many thanks for a smile in return, George. 😀
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Reblogged this on All About Writing and more.
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Thank you for the reblog, Henrietta.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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You are welcome
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Well penned or should I say typed! Good one.
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Thank you for your comment and the smile it give me. 😀
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Love this. And love the control-z, which is, unfortunately absent in knitting as I’ve learned.
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Dear Sascha,
There are so many things ctrl z would come in handy for, aren’t there? It doesn’t work in watercolor either. 😉 Thank you.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Sometimes we all need a good Ctrl-Z in real life. Unfortunately it’s not there yet so lets be thankful of it being in our computers anyway 🙂
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Dear Subroto,
Crtl Z in real life? Oh my! I can think of so many places I could use it. 😉 Thank you for typing by.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thank goodness for Ctrl Z!
Lovely painting, Rochelle.
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Dear Mags,
Crtl-Z has saved many a document, hasn’t it? Thank you.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Time has to pass but there’s no rule says we have to be crazy about it
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