Why Beca Sue? Because . . .

his blog is anticipated to be a sort of stream-of-consciousness journal of my floundering efforts to write professionally. It will meander and muse on whatever distracts or gives pause to me during the journey. I hope to discover and pass on little bits and pieces of valuable insight and information. To be honest if I only accomplish that personally will be enough. However, I hope to have more to contribute.

ne of the first issues to address is my typing. I had proper instruction as far back as my sophomore year of high school. I even spent nearly two decades in Information Technology so it would be expected that I would demonstrate decent facility. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hunt and peck and the best explanation would have to be that I lack confidence. I simply do not trust my fingers to coordinate the effort and consistently locate the appropriate keys. I am constantly interrupting my thought process to focus on the keyboard. I don’t merely glance but stare at the keys. Even then I miss every other stroke and tend to interject the space bar either at odd syllables or one letter shy of a complete word. This must be a reflection on my need for assurance on the whole or especially as pertaining to composition. Coincident with the typing dexterity issue is the need to read what has been laboriously entered about every three sentences. There is so much redundancy and self-congratulatory nonsense interrupting the process that there is very little allowance made for progress.

have considered three solutions and may end up incorporating them all and find a few extra. The obsolete method to capture thoughts before they were lost to distraction or mechanical limitations was to transcribe them via Dictaphone. The modern alternative is software such as Dragon Speak which inputs and formats the text to the computer as one speaks. I may find this very conducive to performing brain dumps and then going through the output and turning it into something resembling crafted writing. Another necessary adjustment is to practice my typing and get more acclimated and automatic with my usage. There are some brain-to-finger transfers that have become trademark patterns as well as bitingly irritating. One repetitive error is a personal demon and a great source of amusement for my friends. No one knows who the elusive Beca Sue, is, but I can tell you she is often mentioned in nearly everything I type. She originated in my consistent typographical error in trying to enter the word “because.”

Therefore, my third corrective behavior is not to get hung up on corrective behavior at all and to just write. If I focus too much on the mechanics and grammar and my personal idiosyncrasies I will not be free to express my ideas and get them into a tangible form. Once the thoughts are actually recorded I may spend however much time is necessary or that I like to massage and rework and prove them – but, they need to be out of my head first and foremost. It sounds so reasonable and simple. Let’s see . . . A,S,D,F . . J, K, L, semi-colon. I can do this!