I’m not exactly a romantic at heart, but you know what’s charming? How writers used to scribble their manuscripts centuries ago. I mean, good old-fashioned pen and paper. The classic.
Picture this: the rustling of paper, the creaking of a quill, and probably the sounds of farm animals with a dog barking in the background. A brick room with a large fireplace in the middle. Oh, so romantic. But let’s be real, it also came with a bucket for a toilet and a bowl for a bath.
I genuinely admire those old-time writers. Writing with a quill, endlessly dipping it in ink—that must have been painfully slow. A single book probably took ages and was a real hassle. Honestly, my wrist and fingers ache just thinking about it. I mean, can you imagine being so meticulous with each paragraph, each letter painstakingly drawn like an artist’s masterpiece? Perfectly formed, but did anyone have time to check if it even made sense?
When I write, frantically bashing away at the keyboard, the story rushes through my mind, and I can barely keep up with it on my Word doc. This particular sentence took me precisely 18 seconds to type with my laptop. When I wrote it down in the simplified modern style, yet using a ballpoint pen and notepad, suddenly this single sentence took 56 seconds. Now, using the feather quill, dipping in the ink, and making each of your written words a beautiful piece of calligraphy, that would probably take at least four times as long. But let’s say our feather-wielding expert is experienced and passionate, so let’s say these 27 words would take 220 seconds, which means it’s 8.3 seconds per word. An average book has around 90k words, and for me, that’s a year’s worth of work. Still with me? Good. That would mean typing out the Decameron, the masterpiece of Italian literature with around 350k words, would take Giovanni Boccaccio nearly 4 years with today’s technology. Imagine that in 1353. The math isn’t my strong suit, but it seems like this Italian genius would need to labor over it for a whopping 58 and a half years. And because we know he died at 62, tell me, how on earth did he manage that? Am I right?
Sure, let’s say you explained it and I bought it.
Picture this: changing a sentence, cutting a paragraph, or rearranging the whole scene in the book is a matter of a few clicks today. Back then, with that damn feather, you could spend an hour on just one sentence. Even if your Mum handed you a pen and paper at birth, 62 years wouldn’t be enough.
Just imagine it.