A 17-year-old gamer who goes by mythicalrocket holds the world record for the fastest typing speed – 305 words per minute for 15 seconds. According to news stories, rocket also typed “The Hobbit,” a tome with more than 400 pages, “in less than six hours.”

Rocket reached these supersonic speeds on an Apex Pro keyboard.

Pretty darn good, rocket. Now let me tell you what typing was like when I was in high school.

We used manual typewriters. In my touch-typing class, I reached the astonishing speed of 45 words per minute – with an amazing 47 errors. I didn’t have a lightweight high-tech keyboard, either. The keys on a manual were heavy and you had to pound them.

I used a Remington typewriter, a green tanklike beast. Talk about heavy metal – in the late 1960s typewriters weighed between 25 and 40 pounds. A professional typist could achieve 80 words per minute on these monsters, with no errors.

So why I am telling you about my pathetic 45/47?

I worked hard to screw up my typing. Back then, careers for women were rare. We were supposed to get married and have kids. Before the kids arrived, we could work as teachers, nurses or secretaries.

Nothing wrong with those professions, but they weren’t for me. I wanted to be a reporter. I figured if men didn’t have to learn to type, neither did I. Some part of my brain thought this was the way to equality.

After college, when I got my first job at a newspaper in 1970s, I was surrounded by men who could only type with two fingers, a process known as “hunt and peck.” I was proud to be one of these incompetent typists.

We typed our stories on cheap newsprint, the stuff that’s now used for packing.

Manual typewriters had a lot of disadvantages. There was no spell check, so if we made a mistake, we x-ed over it, or corrected it in pencil when we finished typing.

If we wanted to move a paragraph, there was no highlight and paste, or cut and paste button. We had to cut and paste for real, and we couldn’t use Elmer’s, glue guns or glue sticks.

First, we’d find the scissors (or steal our neighbor’s), then cut out the paragraph we wanted to move, grab the glue bottle with a brush, smear yellow glue on the paper, and glue in the new paragraph.

Since our news stories were often written on deadline, glue bottles could easily overturn, leaving yellow tumorous masses on our desks.

One more fun fact about manual typewriters. The only way we could get copies was with carbon paper, which got on your clothes and hands. Carbon paper was inserted between two pieces of copy paper, making a sort of sandwich. I was skilled at putting the carbon paper in wrong and carboning the back of my story.

No point in asking to use the office copy machine. They were expensive and restricted to upper management. I’d have a better chance of getting a pint of blood out of the managing editor than using the precious office copy machine.

On the internet, there are typing communities, and competitions for the fastest typists. Here’s mythicalrocket at work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGwKCi4FX84

I love watching those fingers fly over the lightweight high-tech keyboards.

That’s impressive.

But I’d like to see a real old-school speed competition on manual typewriters: deft digits manipulating unmanageable metal.

That’s the key to a real competition.

NOW HEAR THIS: Many of my audio books are free with a 3-month Audible trial. Including my Angela Richman mystery, DEATH GRIP. https://tinyurl.com/393ywnj2

By Elaine Viets

       
          Hey, there, TKZers. A Scarlet Death, my latest Angela Richman, Death Investigator mystery will be published April 2, and I can’t wait for you to read it. This is what TKZ is all about: getting our writing published. It’s why we work to improve our plotting, pacing, even our proofreading. We put a lot of time and money into our work. Let’s not forget to celebrate our success.

It’s easy to become blase after we write multiple books. A Scarlet Death is my 34th mystery. When it arrived, I danced around the house, then showed it off to my friends and family like a new baby. Even my cat, Vanessa, came by to check it out.

Let me tell you a little about A Scarlet Death. Angela investigates the bizarre death of socialite Selwyn Skipton, found strangled on black satin bedsheets, with a red letter A stapled to his chest. Selwyn was a good man. He gave to charity, supported local causes, and was married to his wife for more than twenty years. What were his dark secrets? What did he do to deserve such a terrible death?

Also, what’s going on in Angela’s personal life? Will she be a new bride? Or a new widow?

Here’s a look at the first chapter. Enjoy.

         A Scarlet Death Chapter 1

Selwyn Skipton’s murder scene was one of the strangest, and I’ve seen a lot of them in my job.

The seventy-year-old CEO was buck-naked on a bed with black satin sheets. A silk tie, in a muted shade of blue, was knotted around his neck. There was nothing muted about the large, red letter “A” stapled to his gray-haired chest.

Yep, stapled.

I thought Skipton would be the last man to die on black satin sheets. He was a devoted husband who made big donations to charities – unfashionable causes that helped the illiterate read, the hungry eat, and the homeless find shelter. In short, a good man.

Selwyn was strangled in an apartment above the Chouteau Forest Chocolate Shoppe. My town is so rich, we don’t have shops. We have prissy shoppes.

I’m Angela Richman, a death investigator for Chouteau County, a fat cat community forty miles west of St. Louis, Missouri. Chouteau Forest is the largest town in the county.

Selwyn’s murder was discovered by Maya Richards, the chocolate shop owner. When she opened the store that morning, Maya smelled something that definitely wasn’t chocolate. She followed her nose up the back stairs to the apartment, where the door was unlocked, and poked her head in. One look at the strangled Selwyn, and she sprinted downstairs. When Maya recovered her breath, she wailed like an air raid siren, then called 911.

That’s how Detective Jace Budewitz and I wound up at the scene at eleven o’clock on a freezing December morning, an hour after the place usually opened. The chocolate shop was chaos. The front doors were locked, with the three responding uniformed officers inside. Mike Harrigan, an old pro, was guarding the back door. Scott Grafton was drooling over a rack of chocolate Christmas candy, and Pete Clayton, the new hire, was at the front door. Crazed chocolate lovers stormed the place, oblivious to the falling snow. Jace shooed them away, and had Pete string up yellow crime scene tape.

Maya Richards unlocked the door with shaking fingers, and let us in. I was familiar with the interior, thanks to my craving for sea-salt truffles. The decor hadn’t changed since 1890. Curlicued dark wood framed mirrors behind mahogany counters. The chocolates were displayed like jewels in beveled glass cases. The cases were empty today. Maya knew her shop wasn’t going to open for a while.

Maya was about forty, wearing a chocolate-brown suit, the same color as her hair. Her face was pale as paper and her red lipstick looked like a bloody slash. Maya was shaking so badly, I was afraid she’d collapse. She was clearly in shock, and could barely talk.

Jace was worried about her. He made sure Maya sat in a chair and called 911. I went back to find her a cup of coffee. I couldn’t find any, but there was plenty of the shop’s double-dark hot chocolate. I heated a mug in the microwave, and brought it to her. Maya wrapped her hands around the mug, and nodded. After a few sips, she recovered enough to talk. There were long pauses between her words, but she forced them out. Then the words tumbled out in a rush.

“I . . . get . . . here . . . about seven . . . to set up the shop,” she said.

“I have a very keen nose, and something didn’t smell right. I thought a squirrel might have gotten into the store and died. I checked everywhere, and finally decided the smell must be coming from upstairs.

“Mr. Selwyn Skipton has the entire apartment upstairs. I thought he kept it as a second office, or a pied-à-terre for when he worked late downtown. He owns the building, you see, and he’s a regular customer. He loves our bear claws.”

“Me, too,” I said. Jace frowned at me for interrupting.

Maya took another sip of hot chocolate and kept talking. ‘I’ve never been upstairs in the apartment. Mr. Skipton’s kept it for years, and he likes – I mean, liked – his privacy. I was afraid he might have had some kind of accident. He has his own entrance in the back of the building, and I need a special key to open it. I also need a key to open the door at the top. The upstairs door was left unlocked.

“I ran upstairs and knocked on the door. No one answered. I jiggled the handle and the door swung open. All I saw was this giant bed, covered in black satin, and Mr. Skipton in the middle of it. Dead. And naked. With bugs crawling on him!”

Now Maya’s teeth were chattering. Her breathing was rapid and shallow and her skin was clammy. She set her mug on the floor.

“Are you OK, Ms. Richards?” Jace asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, and fainted.

“See if she has any family, Angela,” Jace said. “I’ll call 911.”

I found her cell phone and ran back. It needed the owner’s fingerprint to unlock it. I grabbed Maya’s limp hand, used her index finger to unlock the phone, scrolled down to an entry that said “Sis,” and called the number. Her sister Anita answered, and once I calmed her down, Anita said she’d leave her office and meet Maya at the hospital.

“That’s the ambulance,” I told her, as the siren died with a squawk. Doors slammed. Pete opened the shop door, and four paramedics rushed in, bringing a blast of cold. Jace explained what happened. They checked Maya’s pulse. “Do you know if this has happened to her before?” the biggest paramedic asked. He looked like he bench-pressed Buicks.

“No idea.” Jace shrugged.

“It could be a panic attack,” the paramedic said, “but we’ll take her to the ER to make sure.”

Jace asked Pete to stay with Maya at the hospital until her sister showed up. The young crew-cut mountain gave Jace a sour look and stomped out the door.

I raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Pete’s got a bad attitude,” Jace said. “He tried to get hired by a big force, and wound up here. Thinks he’s too good to do scut work.”

I nodded, and let it go. Some detectives wouldn’t have bothered taking care of Maya at a murder scene, but Jace had a kind heart.

Meanwhile Mike, the responding officer, had set up the crime scene log. Jace and I gloved up, put on booties and trudged up the dark, narrow private staircase. I dragged my death investigator’s suitcase behind me.

The apartment door was open from when Maya fled downstairs.

Jace looked in and said, “Good lord.”

******************************************************************

A Scarlet Death will be shipped April 2. Preorder your hardcover or ebook at: Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/bde2c7ks

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          Please note that prices may vary. Check before you buy.