When I started writing, the easiest and best way to bring my ideas to life was with a pen on paper (fun note: I still prefer to write that way!), the reason being that I would then have to transfer those words to a typewriter with carbon paper. Anyone remember carbon paper? Mistakes required dabbing BIC Wite-Out over the error and retyping. Too many mistakes and I’d have to retype the entire page.
I still remember the day I got my first word processor. This little beauty looked like a typewriter, but I was able to type an entire line of prose and check for errors before it typed the words on the page. It still required carbon paper or a trip to the nearest copy center, but the change made a huge difference in my output.
When I was growing up, computers were enormous—literally taking up entire rooms. I was in high school when the first desktop-sized computer (Apple II) popped up, but it was far too expensive for the average family.
A friend of the family bought us a Gateway PC in 1993. I was blown away. Not only could I write and store entire manuscripts on this beauty (with the help of floppy disks…anyone remember?), but there was this new, amazing thing called AOL! It took five minutes to boot and made all kinds of funny sounds, but once on board, not only did a lovely-voiced man tell me, “You’ve Got Mail,” but I discovered romance authors were posting there in a group. The ability to interact with my own kind changed my world.
Computers have definitely continued to evolve from there, as has the Internet. Google is every writer’s best friend. What DID I do when I couldn’t hop on Google eighty times a day to ask the oddest variety of questions regarding my books? (Note to the FBI or any other government agency that might go through my searches: I’m a writer!!!)
For fun, I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite recent searches:
How old are Dalmatian puppies when they get their spots?
Does a Corgi howl? What does it sound like?
How quickly would a man die from multiple rattlesnake bites? (Again, note to FBI…)
What was the name of the first Apple computer? (Yep, used Google today for this blog post.)
What sounds do alpacas make? SO funny. Check it out HERE!
It’s odd to think that my grandchildren will never know a time when they didn’t have computers and cell phones (my seven-year-old grandson is already WAY better than me at all things digital). And it’s exciting to see what’s to come (I’m not sold on driverless cars, but we’ll see…)
I’d love to hear how you use Google. Share your funny/scary/interesting searches below! One commenter will win a $5 Amazon.com gift card.
~~Love Courageously~~ Publisher's Weekly Bestselling, award-winning author of 30 novels, Deb Kastner enjoys writing contemporary inspirational western stories set in small communities. She feels especially blessed to be able to include faith as a natural and genuine part of her characters' lives. Deb lives in beautiful Colorado with her husband and a pack of miscreant mutts. She is blessed with three adult daughters and two grandchildren. Her favorite hobby is spoiling her grandchildren, but she also enjoys reading, watching movies, listening to music (The Texas Tenors are her fav), singing in the church choir, and exploring the Rocky Mountains on horseback.
Hi Deb, when I started school we had an Apple IIe that we were very occasionally allowed to play around on. I remember the bright glowing green screen and moving the curser by using the arrow keys. By the time I was at uni, computers were pretty standard and now, all our students have either an iPad or laptop. Crazy!!
Hmm, I do a lot of google searching for school- so history stuff (all sorts of wacky things there!) as well as just for fun.
Blessings:)
Hi Deb! What an interesting journey technology has been. I remember the word processor typewriter. We purchased our first home computer in 1986. Since retired, I google search recipes, preschool coloring pages for my granddaughters, tidbits I run across in my reading, travel information (sites, restaurants, points of interest, hotels) or medical (husband had an infected toe nail). The medical sites can be scary, while travel info is interesting. Best wishes and happy writing.
This post resonates with me so much!! I never had a computer in school, I remember being a senior in HS when the middle school got it’s first…and only … desktop that had to be shared through out the entire school.
I use Google daily at my work and home…for anything and everything!
I use Google to research things we are purchasing such as security cameras, and also when we watch TV my husband will ask who is that person or is that person still alive and I will look it up.
What great memories that our grandchildren will never know. They have lost the art of communication. I search out medications for my parents when the Dr suggests or changes one. Thank you for sharing. Blessings
Just last weekend I was Googling about (to try to put this politely) the backsides of cats. I thought my cat was having an issue so I was trying to see what was normal. It’s amazing what you can find on Google!
Oh my. That poor Alpaca was perturbed. I wonder what their happy sound is. LOL
My first computer was a Commodore 64 (and yes, I Googled to make sure I had the right name). I didn’t write back then, hadn’t even thought of telling stories. I just enjoyed reading them. I used my computer to write code to make a Christmas tree with blinking lights, a star, and I think I even added presents. That was the extent of my computer experience. :)
Like you, I search some weird things. Most recently I’ve been researching Scottish funerals (in the 1700s, obviously not a CCR). Some of my more racy research has involved bondage toys (o.o), though they were used in an abusive way. I’ve also researched poisonous plants. Dear FBI, I’m also a writer.
Thanks for the fun post, Deb.
My 6yo granddaughter can explain to you how cell phone towers work at least as well as the average lay adult, and far better than I can. But she was full of disbelief when I told her that long ago when her daddy was her age, people couldn’t take their phones in their pockets wherever they went. Their phones were stuck to the wall at their house, and that’s the only place you could use them. Still not certain she believed me…
At the school I used to work at, we did a lesson on changes in technology with 2nd grade. We showed them the evolution of the phone. I thought they would wonder about the first phones, that looked so different from what we know. No, they were stuck on corded phones from the recent past “No apps?!?” I Google a ton of things– random facts, recipes, stuff for work, parenting issues.
Thank you for your post today. Oh, goodness, Alpacas sound so funny.. I would never have guessed. They look like big balloon animals. :) I am not really sold on cars that drive themselves either. I guess I like to be in control of certain things.
Hi Deb. Great trip down memory lane. :) I took computer math in high school with a card reader. Yikes! Telling my age for sure. I still remember the wonder and awe when my boyfriend bought a computer. It was so big and cost so much money, but like you I remember putting my words on the screen without the carbon and white-out. How far things have come. How amazing technology is. Thank you for sharing. Oh, and I use Google for a lot of questions. I love Google images for scenery.
I remember when my husband and I were both attending seminary at the same time, and would fight over who got to use the typewriter first :-) He could sit down and type his paper straight onto the page. I had to write mine out longhand first. It was an adjustment when we got a computer and I could do all the cross-outs and additions on the screen!
The most recent Google search I did was how to cook portobello mushrooms! They turned out yummy.
Such a great post! I learned to type on a MANUAL typewriter. Only the “Typing II” people got to use the ONE electric! LOL! Before I wrote seriously, I wrote fanfiction. A friend and I co-authored a story in which an FBI investigation moves to a cruise ship, and since neither of us had been on a cruise, I researched it to death! I found floorplans, schematics, personal stories, pictures – you name it, it’s on the ‘net! I remember though, when the Internet was new, our GA leader (Girls in Action is a missions education organization for young girls, an offshoot of Baptist Women) looking for resources and simply typing in girls in action, then the dot-com. She got the surprise of her life when it was NOT anything to do with missions. She found out later she should have gone to ga.org! LOL
It’s funny to read your post and Google searches. I’m usually searching for word meanings or synonyms… and recently ideas for new furniture (we’ve moved a bit over a year ago and still haven’t furnished the whole place).
Most of my searches are completely random questions that my kids have asked me. Just today I googled how a weather radar works because my 5 year old wanted to know and I had no idea.
I use google a lot for different things….mostly researching medical and drug info. Also, hub is forever asking if some person in a movie he’s watching is still living!
Ah ha ha! That’s so funny, Val. My seven-year-old grandson has the vocabulary of a college kid from watching YouTube and playing video games.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe there was a time I didn’t carry my phone in my pocket. Now I freak out if I go to the store down the street and realize I left my phone at home.
No apps. LOL That totally cracks me up. Even cell phones have come a long way, haven’t they? Huge, to smaller and smaller and then they started growing again.
Right? I think I’d have a heart attack riding in a driverless car.
Oh, gracious. Card readers. In our high school we had one of those ginormous computers that took up a whole room and read cards. I was never any good at that, though.
Oh, yum. Isn’t it great that we can search for a recipe so easily? I remember having to get magazine subscriptions to find new recipes to try.
Whoops. I guess that’s where Google really helps. So you don’t end up on the…er…wrong website.
I actually took a typing class in junior high. But then again, they had Home Economics, as well, where I learned how to wash my hair and “walk like a model.” Oh, dear.
How fun to get to furnish your new place. My oldest and her family, who’ve been living with us, are moving out and taking our living room furniture, so I’ll get to do a bit of that!
I Google a lot with my grandkids. But I do remember the feeling of purchasing our very own encyclopedia set when my girls were young. They looked and smelled so lovely.
That’s too funny! For hubby and I, it’s that we’ll recognize and actor and not be able to remember what else we’ve seen him in. I’m always jumping onto IMDB to figure stuff out.
I never really understood what to do with the blinking green cursor. Now that I’m in my fifties, I’ve been playing around on (of all things, a cell phone app!) Mimo, learning a little bit of computer programming.
Yeah, right? NEVER Google your symptoms! Scary. I do appreciate being able to set up all my travel on the Internet and perform 24-hour airline check-ins on my cell phone.
Hop right on and get the answer, right?
I use IMDB all the time. These days, if we pause our TV it will tell us the actor’s name that’s on the screen and I can easily look him up. Amazing!
I do appreciate being able to be more informed about my health. Due to chronic health issues I take a regular cocktail of meds and I like knowing what I’m putting in my body.
Google gives us so many more options, like knowing whether or not we need to take the cat to the vet.
I do vaguely remember the Commodore 64 and how some people could make cool things with code. The alpaca sound completely freaked my puppy out. Honk! Squeak!
Oh, so many memories contained within this post! ;-) I started out on an antique typewriter (my parents owned an antiques shop), then an electronic cartridge Smith-Corona typewriter, then to a S-C word processor, then finally to our first PC in 1995 (on which I played more games than I wrote books). My kids (ages 35 and 32) can remember “before computers” and “before cell phones”, but I know that they wouldn’t want to return to those pre-technological days!
Today I Googled burn scars on arms for my possible entry into The Great Love Inspired Author Search. *gulp* But I also Googled “6 month old baby in the womb” while helping to edit my sister’s Chapter 1 for her entry.
Loved your post, Deb! :)
I remember typing term papers in college at 3 am. They had to be perfect, no corrections allowed. So I typed and retyped and retyped most of the night.
I love using google on my phone. My three year old granddaughter asks me what a certain animal sounds like and we look it up.
We also had a Commodore 64. It had to be programmed every time we used it.
I Google a lot with my grandaughter anything she needs to know. At 6 that’s a lot lol.
I enjoyed reading this post and all the comments. I enjoyed typing on the last electric typewriter ever I owned, a Smith-Corona that had the word processing feature and—what I loved even more—the print wheels that could be changed out for different fonts. My favorite was a cursive script. When the family got a desktop computer, I played around with different fancy fonts. I think I will go find my calligraphy fountain pen… ;)
I teach 6th grade and it’s hilarious to realize how things have changed. For example, I had to explain what a “long-distance call” was the other day when we read it in our class book. I also had to explain how phones used to hang on the wall and you could wrap yourself up in the cord.
We’ve actually googled our older children and found out that their swim times are public! On Google! The kids were a bit weirded out by that.
How exciting. Wishing you and your sister the best for your entries into The Great Love Inspired Author Search. Harlequin is a wonderful publisher to write for.
I forget I can “talk” to Google. My grandson has to keep reminding me. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to speaking to inanimate objects.
I know, right? How cool that we can actually turn to Google for quick answers.
Oh, the print wheels. I remember those! And I used to do calligraphy, as well, ages ago. I may go find my calligraphy pen, too!
It’s really interesting to view it from a child’s perspective. It’s exciting to think of where science and technology will continue to take us.
Okay, that’s just SCARY. I’ll admit I’ve Googled myself, but it never occurred to me to look up any of the rest of my family.
Another thing that weirds me out is when my phone informs me that SINCE I’M AT TACO BELL, I can pay using Samsung Pay. I don’t really want my phone knowing where I am all the time. But what can you do?
I’ve also read about clothing stores that analyze your STYLE with a video camera so they can recommend things of interest to you. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
I remember typing papers for highschool. I took typing class and shorthand.
I google things like excercises for trigger finger. And use word unscramblerfor wordgames I play. I also google authors websites.
LOL Even though I’ve grown up in this century, I actually prefer writing by hand and not by computer (wranted, I’m no author, I’m just talking homework), but still. As for the Google searches, again, I use it either for homework or to search something that my parents are talking about and I have no clue as to what it is.
Googling is so helpful nowadays lol I don’t know if my kiddos can survive without… Although it makes me sad sometimes, people don’t socialize anymore-only virtually.
My mom and I have sometimes talk about life before Google and how many questions went unanswered. A few months ago, I somehow got into a conversation about giraffes wearing neckties and where on their neck they would put them. Google showed me lots of pictures of giraffes wearing ties and there was also a Youtube video from Toys ‘R’ Us on the subject. This is definitely one of the silliest and most random things that I’ve searched for.
I use Google for a variety of things, checking to be sure if such n such actor is so n so on whatever show I think I remember them from if common. Helping my daughter with homework. Making sure that word I am typing that looks so wrong but autocorrect isn’t helping much is in fact spelled right.
I use google somedays for a recipe I am trying to find all the right stuff that goes in my recipe if I am not sure of Thanks for the chance to win!