I’m not really a romantic soul, but how writers used to write their manuscripts centuries ago sounds pretty romantic. I mean the old fashion pen and paper. The classic.
The rustling of paper, the creaking of a pen, and most probably sounds of farm animals together with a barking dog. The brick room with a large fireplace in the middle. Yeah, romantic. But honestly, this all came with a bucket as a toilet and a bowl instead of a shower.
Frankly, I really admire old age writers. Writing with a pen, the endless dipping in ink, this all must have been a very slow process, and one single book probably took a lot of time and pain. Geez, my wrist and fingers are sore when I only imagine all this stuff.
The longing for being an author is natural these days. Books are all around. If you’re lucky that your parents led you to read books, you had thousands and thousands to pick, and there was always more. Back in Shakespeare’s days, the book was unique. Only a very wealthy person owned a couple of books, likely religious ones. I think those rare authors back then were born a writer. They must have been driven by the stories in their head and heart and felt the urge to write them down. The papers were handmade and expensive. If today is hard to get published, imagine when a couple of print companies existed in Europe, and the printing process was a basically slow copy of each page after a compositor created it from small letters.
What a desire in writers must have been!
Today an average person finishes reading a good book, shut it down and think: “Yeah, that must be great, writing a book. I might try that.”
All you need is to learn all ten fingers typing, get a laptop for a few bucks and you’re all set.
Sure, only those with talent succeed, and only those hard-working could write the whole book. But hey, anyone can write today.
