Trying to Create a Writing Technology :: Writing Writers Education Essays

Trying to Create a Writing Technology Creating a writing technology is a much more difficult task than I first anticipated. I thought it would be rather simple to create text within nature, but my first attempt failed miserably. I found something to act as the "paper" rather easily, but my problem was finding something that would act as the "ink" on my writing surface. I wanted to create something impressive that could be considered a new way to write. Trying to find something in nature, without the help of modern conveniences, was more of a chore than I first anticipated. I went from trying to carve with sharp rocks, to trying to create ink with flower petals and dandelions, to smashing beets and nothing seemed to work. We have lots of firewood in our backyard, so I just peeled the bark off a large log and used the inside portion of the bark as the writing surface. The tougher part was finding something to show up on that bark. On my first attempt, I created something similar to ink, made with beets, and used a slender twig from the garden to write on the bark. The "ink" was just smashed up beets. It was a pretty thick substance and colored red, so I thought it would show up nicely on the inside of the bark. I was wrong. I thought of beets because I know that's what people used to use to paint their barns red. As I wrote the words, it seemed to be working fine. I let it dry in the garage for about an hour and went back out to check on it, and to my surprise, all my words had totally disappeared. Instead of creating a writing technology, I created a new type of invisible ink. I went onto Plan B with my writing surface made up of the inside of tree bark in hand. I decided I needed something more discernible on the surface. Therefore, I created a sticky substance made by mixing together honey and water and then sprinkled sand over the top to help define the letters and make the words more readable. I administered the sticky substance on the bark with a slender twig and this seemed to work much better than the "beet ink." And to my pleasure, I went back an hour later and the text was still visible.