Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘PC Fools. The Rebel Writer Writes Of Slaves & Masters‘

The great science fiction author Ray Bradbury says, ‘A computer is a typewriter. I have two typewriters, I don’t need another one’ (James Hibberd, 2001 August 29, archive.salon.com). So, one of my favorite writers is one of my PC Fools. Having written 107 essays in the last 105 weeks in the American Chronicle alone, edited and desktop-published my own book (read ‘My American Book,’ frankahilario.com), I know that in creative writing, if you don’t fool around with the PC, you’re a fool.

For the last 2 decades, I’ve been saying that the typewriter is for critical thinking, the personal computer is for creative thinking. If you got it right, you’re a creative journalist. Otherwise, you’re just one of many mechanical-thinking reporters.

And then I have just found another Luddite, another refuser of the computer. Even as he is ‘America’s leading political satirist’ (GA, groveatlantic.com), PJ O’Rourke is ‘the biggest Luddite in the western hemisphere’ (Christopher Koch, 2007 January 30, advice.cio.com). That makes two of the world’s biggest PC Fools. The personal computer is nowhere in Bradbury’s and O’Rourke’s past, present, future. If they can’t learn from the modern world, why should they teach the modern world anything? Well, we can learn from their mistakes.

You see, PC Fools, there are three of those kinds:

Fool #1, the one who rejects the PC and feels good about it; he is the master of his own inferiority. He is a fool; he discards what he has not even tried. Shun him.

Fool #2, the one who accepts the PC yet he treats it like a typewriter; he is the slave of his own mediocrity. He is a fool; he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Teach him.

Fool #3, the one who embraces the PC and treats it as a device for creativity; he is the master of his own superiority. He is a fool; he fools around with the PC because in that way, the machine becomes his slave; and he knows that fooling around is a most delightful way to be creative; in fact, it is the only way. Follow him.

I know which fool am I; do you know which fool are you?

Fool is the way to go. Foolishness is the secret of creativity. I just remembered a parallel line by Ralph Waldo Emerson: ‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’ Logical and rules-bound is not the way for creative writers. Oh men of little faith!

That is to say: Creativity is fooling around; a lot of creativity is a lot of fooling around. That’s what I meant when I wrote earlier, ‘Genius is 10% perspiration and 90% inspiration’ (‘My Law Of Graffiti,’ January 22, frankahilario.com). As much as you can play the fool, as much as you can be creative.

Actually, many people decline to use the PC because they are awed by it, or think they are too old or too stupid to learn, or don’t realize how they can improve productivity tremendously. This is not to mention that quite a number don’t want to improve their productivity at all – they only work for the money. Certainly, I say to you, already they have their reward.

Here, I will assume that you are none of those rejecters of the PC, and that you know that you will write better if you knew more about your software. ‘I can’t be bothered’ and ‘That’s the work of my secretary’ and ‘I can afford to pay somebody’ are each a lazy man’s excuse, or that of a writer who doesn’t want to be good at what he’s doing. So, what do you want? Me, I want to be the best!

Recording – Typing and correcting. Making, reviewing and revising your drafts, from the first to the last, your worp is best suited for these tasks, what with the eminently practical flash drive for backup copies. The worp wasn’t much before the flash drive, when the eminently affordable storage material was the floppy 1.4MB disk that could easily catch a mold.

Yes, your best ally in writing is the word processor. And why not? The worp takes care of the routines of writing (like typing with tentative sentences, revising without retyping, doing the spelling check) while you take care of the creative (like tagging, moving pages about instantly using outline-organize and viewing the results). That is, if you want to be the best you can be as a writer.

In Chapter 2, which is this one, I want you to learn just 13 commands of Word 2003 with which to fool around with ideas out of the box in your creative moments.

Divorce is for people who want to fool around. I fool around too, but only with ideas. I mean creative writing is a lot of fooling around. You can’t fool around if you’re the slave, if you’re not the master of what you’re doing, of what you’re using.

I heard she has been writing essays. I wouldn’t be surprised if Maria Sharapova turns out to be a very creative writer one of these days. Already, she is master of her own game.

‘There are no tyrants where there are no slaves,’ wrote my hero, the Philippines’ National Hero Jose Rizal more than 100 years ago. No more slave. Master is better.