For a long time now, I’ve been used to going through one keyboard a year; that’s twenty keyboards over the last twenty years, at least.
The reason for that is multi-faceted.
- First, I type a lot and I type very fast, so my keyboards take a lot of abuse during that year.
- Second, I am a heathen and eat peanut butter and jelly while hunched over my keyboard, so yeah, the crumbs don’t fall out when I tip the keyboard and shake it; instead, they are stuck permanently and forever with jelly glue and peanut butter adhesive.
- Third, I’ve been buying inexpensive keyboards from the local gadget store. You know, the keyboards that cost $35 and look so sleek and utilitarian when they come out of the box.
Now that I’m in the midst of writing my fifth book in the Oliver & Jack series (currently I’m midway through the first draft of On The Isle Of Dogs), I began to realize how tired my fingers were getting after a session on the computer. How the images of letters on each key always faded so quickly. How my fingers would slip off the edges of the modern-styled and rounded keys. Finally I hit my last nerve and googled: good keyboards for writers. Because, hey! I’m a writer! I deserve better, as do all writers.
And this is what I found: the Matias Tactile Pro for Mac. Since I have a Mac, that’s good news for me, but the other good news is that they make one for PCs. (They make a quieter one, but who would want that?)
Why is this great? Because it is! Listen, even the mere description of the keyboard made me drool as though it were made entirely of chocolate. This keyboard has “mechanical switches” (which means, I think, that they work independently, and so send signals faster to the computer? At any rate, those switches feel terrific, like I’m really typing, really writing a book!) The Matias also has “traditional sculpted keys” which means that your fingers will no longer slip off the modern keys which have flat or curved surfaces. Lastly, but not leastly, the Matias also has “laser-etched keys” which means that the images of the letter on each key will never, ever, ever wear off. Somewhere I had read that the Matias had the sound and feel of an old IBM Selectric and that’s when my gotta-have-it hormones really took off.Â
So I ordered one, a little pricy at $135 on Amazon, but, I figure I’d been spending $35 or more a year on keyboards that were never actually very satisfactory and actually, I was quite, quite sure, made me a poorer writer.
Now, with this gleaming white keyboard that hooks up to my Mac Mini with an ACTUAL cord (instead of being the dizzy-minded Bluetooth connection that always seems to crap out on me when I need to go faster), and goes clickety-clack, clickety-clack with each word that I type. I’m pounding away on this thing, and I know that it is helping me through sound alone, become a better writer. Seriously.
Now, if only I could find a solution to my mouse problem. To find a mouse, bluetooth or other, that doesn’t suddenly decide that it is too cranky and old to actually point at what I want to point at. I’m not a gamer, so I just need something solid and reliable that doesn’t make my wrist ache as I scroll through Tumblr–I mean, as I’m editing any typos in my manuscript. Yes, yes, that’s what I mean. Do you have any recommends?