Anyhow, I got the job, which was to produce an outdoor column once every two weeks. And I settled into a routine where I wrote a column longhand, sat on it for a week to get some perspective, and then rewrote it, in longhand again. The final step in the process was the polishing and typing, which was accomplished with generous applications of a cover-up substance called “Wite-Out.” (I didn’t have a ‘delete’ key back then). Then I hand-delivered the columns to the newspaper, which gave me a chance to meet some of those award-winning journalists and photographers, who actually seemed like pretty normal people.

This all happened back in 1988. Within a couple years I had acquired a Brothers word processor, which eliminated the need for Wite-Out because it didn’t actually print the words on paper until all my editing was done and mistakes corrected.

from Working at the Word Factory: The Curious Life of a Small-Town Newspaper Journalist by Eric Poor (Hobblebush Books)