Tools to Create

When I began writing after university I used a bound journal to enter my experiences. In the 50 years since those first beginnings, the technology changed, and with it, the type of writing I did.

I migrated from bound journals to a loose leaf binder in the military. This was a faint image of the famous journals in literary history, Samuel Pepys for example. I spent a lot of time recording my thoughts and evolved continuously in how I presented myself.

When we got our first home word processor in 1987, I worked at my writing with the intent of making a completed text I would use in another application. I produced letters mostly, but a few journal entries. I also maintained the format of my earlier journal-writing. The word processor replaced the three typewriters I accumulated.

We bought our first home computer on April 21, 1996 and installed it in the kitchen where the extra phone jack was located. We connected to the internet via dial up. I had used computers at work, including for email, but having a home computer was a revolution. Thus began a period of experimentation with online writing.

In 2006, a group of consultants from Hyderabad, India convinced me to move to a new email platform called Gmail. At the time I needed a referral to get into Gmail, which the guys gladly gave. I spend as many hours drafting emails as I do other forms of writing. Email changed how I did correspondence forever and for the better.

As our child finished college in 2007, I joined the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch. I stayed on both for a long time, yet terminated both in the revival period of American oligarchs, Twitter in 2024 and Facebook in 2025. Social media became a creative outlet as well as a news source. I continue to post on BlueSky which rose in the wake of the transition of Twitter to X. For now, I expect to continue.

Also in 2007 I posted my first blog on the platform Blogger. Eventually I transferred to WordPress which seemed more user friendly. Even though I wrote thousands of blog posts, I printed them out in book form using a service. The concern about hours and hours of creative effort vanishing into the ether because of an electrical failure or an errant keystroke has me seeking the comfort of paper.

Today I write book-length projects in Microsoft Word, which I began learning while I was working at the oil company. At the time, it was MS-DOS based and not nearly as functional as it is today. Microsoft Word facilitates saving single documents so I don’t lose them. It also provides a form of security that seems less available on the internet.

Creative people need tools to create. In my case it was basic pen and paper for the first 20 years. After personal computers came along, the whole world of writing changed, not only for me but for everyone. I would not want to go back.