Jessica Newman
“Even with All this Technology”

TEXT-ONLY VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

[video of side of laptop, with notebook and pen in foreground]

I write stories. Even with all this technology, I write by hand at least when I write stories. I write by hand in order to unearth. To feel friction of nib and ink against page until something I never knew becomes something I have always known.

[video of hand writing in notebook with pen]

[video of typing on screen]

But I also type. I type to edit to rearrange to reread to easily copy and delete and try out. I type to make presentable, emailable, submittable, and ever since I had surgery on my dominant hand a few years ago, leaving me unable for a few weeks to hold a pen, I have slowly but increasingly been typing for the same reasons that I write by hand.

Most of all, I do both.

Read... Look for where I should jump in.

Highlight, cut.

Move.

Rearrange.

Read.

Look.

Move on.

[video of hand writing in notebook with pen]

Begin.

How should this end?

Let's try something else.

[video of typing on screen]

Yeah... No.

Move out of the way.

[video of hand writing in notebook with pen]

Oh! An idea for a past project: Make a note.

Do your best later to remember what this means.

And now we're back. Let's keep going.

What of him do I remember...?

Just keep writing.

See what I can find.

[video of typing on screen]

I'm going to keep this. It's done. For now.

[video of hand writing in notebook with pen]

But there's something else. What?

[video of typing on screen]

Fix the formatting.

Give myself room.

[video of hand writing in notebook with pen]

And I cannot forget the stillness, the importance of silence. Of sitting. And waiting. Not passively, but patiently.

[video of typing on screen]

And here it is.