I Think I'm In Love...

[sleigh]

Oh, I'd had 'relationships' beforehand: with black pens, almost exclusively, sometimes plain Bics and the occasional fling with a fountain pen. Then there were typewriters with whom I shacked up for a time: the Smith-Corona 2001, the IBM Selectric -- but I knew all along that I wouldn't stay faithful to them because I never really enjoyed our intercourse. I did it because I had to do it...

Then I threw them all over for the world of computers, and I realized that there were better ways to fling words at paper. My first affair there was with MacWrite, but I abandoned her quickly for the allure of the powerful: Microsoft Word. Her, I married... because I was certain that I had found the love of my life.

The two of us were married for a long time. A couple decades. I think there was genuine love between us back in those early years -- a joy in producing work together: of weaving words, of cutting and pasting, of spellchecking. But Ms. Word... well, like many of us, as time went on, she lost her figure. She became... bloated. She started taking interest in things that had nothing to do with me. She started lecturing me, she started offering to help me when I didn't need help. She wanted to be more than my word processor. I tolerated it for a long time -- all her expensive 'updates' and makeovers, all of her changes.

But I was slowly falling out of love with her, and by the end -- a few years ago -- I was only tolerating her, afraid to leave but not enjoying my time with her and thinking about how nice it might be to leave her behind to seek our own ways. I confess that I started seeing other word processors behind her back: Mellel, Mariner Write, Appleworks, Pages, TextEdit, AbiWord, Nisus...

Ah, Nisus... She was -- and still is -- a beauty. She felt good. She was young and lithe, she seemed to know just what I wanted in a word processor. She was affordable. I took the plunge: I left Ms. Word and I went to Nisus, and she took me in. And we were happy -- things were like I remembered them, long ago. Novels came, and short stories. We talked of marriage and commitment.

But... I had been hearing about this other program for a time. Whispers in conversations about something.... different. A few friends were using her, this stranger: Scrivener. And I listened to them raving about her, and I wondered. I even downloaded her once and played with her furtively on my computer while Nisus wasn't running. I found her intriguing, but I never really went beyond a few quick kisses and fondlings. We never quite became intimate, and after a few days, I deleted her, thinking "No, I shouldn't do this. Nisus is good to me..."

But I kept hearing her name, now and again. And when another person I know mentioned her and sang her praises, I was intrigued again, and downloaded her once more and loaded in the current work-in-progress and really tried her. And all through the process I was saying "Wow!" and "This is neat" and "Yes!"

I realized that I had gone to Nisus because she was familiar: she reminded me of when Ms. Word had been young and vital. But Scrivener.... Scrivener was something else entirely. She would be whatever I wanted her to be. She was interested in what I was doing; she thought the way I did.

Right now, I'm in that wonderful honeymoon of a new relationship. We're still discovering things about each other -- wonderful things, for the most part -- and learning how we each fit together. I haven't yet come across those flaws that at first seem endearing but later turn into skin-flaying irritations. But...

I'm thinking right now that perhaps she's the One. And it's a good feeling.

Comments

do you think....

[parrismcb.livejournal.com]

we could get George to try it for a while? HIs old Ms. Wordstar is pretty long in the tooth, yet he clings to the old 'ware because he's never found a WP program that did just what he wanted to do and no more - and every time h'es forced to even convert a file to Word he screams in pain and misery. Most WP programs keep trying to tell him that 'Westeros' and 'Tyrion' aren't words. Of course they are, George made them up all by hisself!

Hope it's along and happy relationship for you.

perfect music in the background

[parrismcb.livejournal.com]

still a lovely heartbreaking song, isn't it? Did a Sandy orgy on New Year's - playing lots of fairport and then the Denny collection 'who knows where the times goes'.

[madtruk.livejournal.com]

hehe...very nice. Give my regards to Capn DOS and Ms. TRS80...

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm just monogamous. After a brief fling with Wordstar, I moved in with Protext in 1985 and we've been together ever since.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Let us know when your first anniversary comes up, because that's the Paper Anniversary.

[davidbcoe.livejournal.com]

I was in a long term relationship with Word Perfect. We started up together when I was in grad school, and we stayed together through a dissertation and eight books. But eventually I found that as much as I loved her, I couldn't live with being ostracized. Everyone else was using Word; my editors and friends began to complain that they couldn't get past her formatting quirks. I just wanted to share files with others and she was holding me back. Now I'm with Word, and while I can't say that I'm happy, I do, at least, have friends....

Great entry. Very entertaining. I'm thinking of switching to mac with my next computer purchase, so I might give your program a try.

[stevenagy.livejournal.com]

I'm still experimenting. Best time, as I'm starting a new project. I've used Word for most of the stuff I've written since 98. I like the keywords and labeling, as well as the split screen capabilities, which are things I've never found within Word.

Just downloaded it...

[cfgwebgeek.livejournal.com]

--and installed it a few days ago, but haven't even had a chance to try the tutorial yet. After that, I plan to load in something that's been languishing for a long time & see how things go.

She seems rather popular already. (One of the writers for Spooks [known as MI-5 here in the US] sang her praises.) Hope she's got lotsa sisters...

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reminding me why I love hanging around with writers - this entry was great. (And I still sigh with longing for the XyWrite of my youth...)

[hrimcealde.livejournal.com]

wow. that does sound sexy.

[tardistenant.livejournal.com]

You intrigue me. I've been with MS Word a long, long time. But I too was getting fed up with what a qvetch she was, always sticking her nose in and trying to tell me what I was doing. But a lot of that went away when I abandoned the Microsoft world (o happy day) and started using Word for Mac. (I just didn't like Applewriter.)

But you've always been a Mac user. And yet you still felt Word was controlling you?