What do you write with?

[Sospira]

What do you prefer to write with...laptop, typewriter, by hand first..? I am trying to find the best way for myself. I think a typewriter could work well for me, as I don't find computers very conducive to inspiring or maintaining my poetic mood - all that electricity buzzing seems to sap out the poetry from my world...well not entirely. I do use a computer for writing but am wondering if there is a better way for me. But with typewriters, how do you erase or move things around, you can't exactly cut and paste can you? My ideas need a lot of moving around on the page, they come out disjointed i.e. the end of an idea before the beginning, and just generally need to edit and improve on things or delete things etc .What are electric typewriters like?

[DATo]

I have found that the convenience of using the computer makes writing easier for me. It is so much faster to to simply delete, and/or replace words and paragraphs in another position using "cut & paste" capabilities of the computer rather than retyping, or erasing and rewriting on paper. Also, the computer (while online) allows one to check such things as historical dates and other material for accuracy before putting it into a story. And all of this is before I ever get to the automatic spell checker which I simply could not live without .... I couldn't .... I'd probably die with a murmuring diphthong in my throat *L*

[YesNo]

I mainly use a computer, but I put the documents in Google Drive so I could access them from my tablet or phone. As DATo mentioned, working with the internet is also convenient. I haven't seen a manual typewriter in years.

When I'm walking and taking notes, I use a small notebook although I could also use the phone if I forgot the notebook and pen, but I don't want to use the battery on this since I might also want to take photos.

[Marbles]

I have found that the convenience of using the computer makes writing easier for me. It is so much faster to to simply delete, and/or replace words and paragraphs in another position using "cut & paste" capabilities of the computer rather than retyping, or erasing and rewriting on paper. Also, the computer (while online) allows one to check such things as historical dates and other material for accuracy before putting it into a story. And all of this is before I ever get to the automatic spell checker which I simply could not live without .... I couldn't .... I'd probably die with a murmuring diphthong in my throat *L*

Computers have made writers careless and frivolous. They know that they can write paragraphs upon paragraphs only to erase them with the convenience of a simple mouse click; the care for thought and content, the importance of knowing one's words and spellings, in the old days of pen-and-paper and even typewriters, seems to have lost a lot of its importance in the age of easily erasable writing.

The dexterity with which writers used historical content to incorporate into their texts is also, often, lacking. Once one had to be read thoroughly to write anything on history; now one can glide along with the basics and beef up info with Google searches. It makes life easier, surely, but it also means that the historical bit is haphazardly knitted in the fabric of the text so that its roughness is felt on the aesthetic eye, because a writer hasn't a profound understanding of his history, and it gives their text a sheen of the superfluous.

My one advice to writers who use history in their writings, or those who make a lot of cultural and literary references, is to make sure they don't try to appear more well-read and knowledgeable than they are. Because, in the end, it always shows, and that's because their projected knowledge is not a result of a deep study like Borges's or Nabokov's but skimmed off the pages of the web.

[DATo]

Computers have made writers careless and frivolous. They know that they can write paragraphs upon paragraphs only to erase them with the convenience of a simple mouse click; the care for thought and content, the importance of knowing one's words and spellings, in the old days of pen-and-paper and even typewriters, seems to have lost a lot of its importance in the age of easily erasable writing.

The dexterity with which writers used historical content to incorporate into their texts is also, often, lacking. Once one had to be read thoroughly to write anything on history; now one can glide along with the basics and beef up info with Google searches. It makes life easier, surely, but it also means that the historical bit is haphazardly knitted in the fabric of the text so that its roughness is felt on the aesthetic eye, because a writer hasn't a profound understanding of his history, and it gives their text a sheen of the superfluous.

My one advice to writers who use history in their writings, or those who make a lot of cultural and literary references, is to make sure they don't try to appear more well-read and knowledgeable than they are. Because, in the end, it always shows, and that's because their projected knowledge is not a result of a deep study like Borges's or Nabokov's but skimmed off the pages of the web.

Do you seriously contend that writers of antiquity would not use our current technology if it were available to them in their own times; that movie makers would not use it; that scientists would prefer a slide rule, and abacus to a computer? Can you possibly imagine what might have been the result if Isaac Newton had access to a computer .... Einstein? Can you imagine how much more prolific would have been the output of Shakespeare, Goethe or Dostoyevsky if they had access to a word processor? Can you imagine the look on Orson Welles' face after seeing the movie, The Return Of The King? Would he not be willing to trash Citizen Kane, or, verily, sell his very soul to the devil for access to such movie-making technology?

Are you maintaining that before a writer can include a reference to Alexander's conquest at Gaugamela that he must first have the equivalent of a PhD in history and know the date of this battle as a matter of course? That unless a writer is steeped in the details of the subject he refers to in his writing he must remain silent?

I wrote a short story which can be found here at the Lit Net called Werewolf. In it there were references to days, and the dates they fell on. I meticulously looked up the days online and the dates on which they occurred as well as the actual dates, over 100 years ago, upon which full moons occurred. Now, would you contend that I should not have used this information because it was acquired online - that I, as a writer, should be some autistic savant who must know the days and dates upon which they fell from memory? I also included reference to an historically authentic, 19th century English gentleman's club as well as its actual historical address in the heart of London. Am I presumptuous in my wish to be accurate to history and include the name of a real club and its address by looking it up online? By your contention I should either be expertly read on English gentlemen's clubs or not refer to them at all.

Now, perhaps I will surprise you by agreeing that today's writers ARE making life easier for themselves by using our current technology, and, furthermore, I hold the prowess of past writers as nothing short of miraculous owing largely to the vast database of knowledge they were REQUIRED to assimilate in order to be proficient in their work, but I do not consider it cheating for a contemporary writer to use whatever tools are available to him to advance his efforts.

[Marbles]

Do you seriously contend that writers of antiquity would not use our current technology if it were available to them in their own times; that movie makers would not use it; that scientists would prefer a slide rule, and abacus to a computer? Can you possibly imagine what might have been the result if Isaac Newton had access to a computer .... Einstein? Can you imagine how much more prolific would have been the output of Shakespeare, Goethe or Dostoyevsky if they had access to a word processor? Can you imagine the look on Orson Welles' face after seeing the movie, The Return Of The King? Would he not be willing to trash Citizen Kane, or, verily, sell his very soul to the devil for access to such movie-making technology?

There is a widespread belief that technological inventions are progressing humanity and that we today are better placed than our predecessors. This may or may not true.

It's true of staple crops if we're talking about agriculture or travelling from Trinidad to London, but arts and literature (and with that collective wisdom) do not have a directly proportional relationship with advancing technology. If anything, we have seen a gradual dumbing down of arts for the sake of popular appeal and mass market. Our writings, our treatment of knowledge and history - our collective artistic merit, in short - have not improved with technology. I think it's wishful thinking to believe that it has.

I'm not a fan of retrospective speculation and of transposing one period of time on another. It's like saying if God had access to a computer he could have written Genesis better, or generated a better model for the universe. If Newton had access to a computer he wouldn't be Newton anymore; he'd be Stephen Hawking!


Now, would you contend that I should not have used this information because it was acquired online...

By your contention I should either be expertly read on English gentlemen's clubs or not refer to them at all.

No, I didn't mean that by a long margin. Sure, put technology to good use as it makes things easier. Take dictionaries. Before we had to go through fat hardbound volumes to get the meaning of one word; now we can look up multiple sources with a few clicks and save time. So using technology certainty has benefits. Same with studying for things online, as long as one's sources are impeccable. But today our generation is suffering from what one writer described as 'an acute case of infomania'. We devour far more in too little time without digesting it. So what happens that superficiality comes to define our (historical and other) writing. We can talk about everything but don't know anything in enough depth to produce a lasting effect. This can happen without using modern tech so I'm not having a go at technology. But today it's much easier to be careless than in the past, and the reason is that info comes haphazardly, suddenly and cheaply.

[Pagano]

Notebook and pencil. When that starts to make my eyes hurt, I switch to an app called focuswriter on my laptop. It's just a simple gray screen for you to write on. Soon, this begins to make my eyes hurt. So begins the cycle.

[KayKurruption]

I could never make a personal connection with my work while writing on a laptop so I have always resorted to pen and paper first. Then I proceed to make corrections while typing out and a second draft on my laptop. The only part that is completely done on the computer is formatting aforementioned writing.

[Dreamwoven]

My first book was written before there were computers: on a typewriter, to be published in a Direct Edition. This was a real pain, as it was a major job to add a new paragraph once the chapter was written and I had moved on to a later chapter.

I would not want to go back to the bad old days. I guess it is OK for those with secretarial backup or who use a shadow author and who make a mint out of writing as a profession.

[NewSecret]

I write primarily with red ink. When I write an extended fiction my hand can dry out so I need to use lotion. Second draft I use Microsoft Word.

[cacian]

a key board
my first poem however was written with a pen on paper
i do that from time to time
handwriting can be fun :)

[Passwave]

I use a computer. I used to write with pen and paper, but my hand writing is so bad, none of my friends or family would be able to get through it. And spell checker is a life saver.

[hannah_arendt]

First I write with my pen and then I type it.

[tailor STATELY]

I prefer to write primarily w/ my laptop; sometimes pen (Parker) and paper. I enjoy the freedom of online tools and resources, but still like to use my paper-bound Roget. Having the resources of a near-complete library at my fingertips is empowering. Ideas will find their way onto anything handy I can write on at the time, often my left palm I've dubbed my palm pilot.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Dreamwoven]

In a purely technical sense I write first in a wordpress page, which allows citations and a very flexible menu of different formats. Then I copy and paste the contents into a file for final editing.

[108 fountains]

After a long time of resisting modernity and feeling that a keyboard would never allow my emotions and imagination to flow in quite the same way as when I write with a pen and paper, I finally made the switch several years ago and now I write exclusively on the computer (Microsft Word). Now I can't imagine ever going back to pen and paper.

Having access to modern technology for writing has caused me to have even greater respect - astonishment is not too strong a word - for earlier generations that had only paper and ink to write with. I have a paperback version of Huckleberry Finn that includes xeroxed copies of pages from Twain's original manuscript. It's amazing to see the cross-outs, the arrows and the added words, even added paragraphs cramped into corners of the pages. And I am at a loss for words for people like Dickens who had to come up with monthly installments of lengthy works without the possibility of ever going back to revise earlier chapters as their stories progressed.

The great advantage of electronic word processing, to me, is the ability to make revisions and reorganizations/rearrangements that would be difficult, time consuming, and really impossible to make otherwise. Plus there is the advantage of easy storage and the ability to print an infinite number of copies. (I still remember in 1986 buying a typewriter with a new technology - it had a one-page memory so that I could actually make copies without using cabon paper!)

Having the spelling and grammar tools are nice, but I generally don't rely on them. I do like having an online dictionary at my fingertips, and I do often switch screens and go to Google when I am in need of fact-checking or when I am looking for some background on a particular subject.

Marbles and DATo, I found your exchange extremely interesting and thought-provoking. You both have valid points. I would tend to take a middle ground. The use of technology, particularly Internet searches, certainly does offer the potential for writers to become lazy and/or to skim web pages in order to gain a superficial knowledge of a subject that can be injected into their work to give the false appearance that they have a deeper knowledge of the subject than they actually have. On the other hand, a good writer, such as DATo, can use the same technology for purposes such as fact-checking dates or basic information about a specific event or person or place without pretending to be an expert on the subject.

I agree that there has been "a gradual dumbing down of the arts for the sake of popular appeal and mass market" and a "superficiality" in art, culture and education for at least the past 50 years, and that the technology of mass communications (TV and Internet) has contributed to that. On the other hand, mass communication has also allowed for an unprecedented amount of access to the best of classic and modern literature and other forms of art, as well as to historical and cultural information. (On this site, with a few clicks of the mouse, I have free access to the complete works of Shakespeare, Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Kipling, Tolstoy...) The key when looking for information on the Internet, as Marbles said, is to be sure "one's sources are impeccable."

So in my opinion, the technology is there to be put to excellent use, but for any number of reasons, people tend to use the technology in superficial, even harmful ways. What I find truly disheartening is the number of people who are satisfied with superficiality and accept it and even embrace it. The best and brightest of us have created technologies that should allow humanity not only to progress, but to soar to greatness. Humanity is only humanity, however, and we still carry the prejudices and superstitions and small-mindedness that keep us tethered to mediocrity.

I do have some optimism, however. I would think that there must have been just as much mediocrity and "bad art" in days past as there is today, but that through the collective effects of history and a human society that progresses in fits and starts, the best has filtered its way to the top and the worst has been long forgotten. Even with the unprecedented numbers of blogs and self-publications that modern technology allows today, some of which is pretty awful, I am hopeful that the same historical and social processes will eventually separate today's wheat from its chaff.

[Francis Meadows]

Laptop for certain. Easy to correct typos and to edit afterwards.

While on the go, tablet is nice. Even if I prefer the laptop, mainly because I'm still not used to touch screen keyboards, a tablet is a great tool on the go. I find few things more inspiring than sitting down in a pub or restaurant. Or on a train or bus and write surrounded by life.