Writing Tech
Filed under General • 19-08-2010 •
The WordPunk website asks genre writers and editors which technologies they use in their day to day writing and/or editing lives. My personal response (quoted in the article) is as follows:
“At university, I used a secondhand manual typewriter. This was the early nineties. I used to balance the machine on the end of my bed, by the window overlooking the river, and sit cross-legged, battering out essays and stories. It was a beast. It weighed a tonne and the clatter of its keys could be heard throughout the house.
“These days, I use MS Word 2007. I use it in page view, so it feels like I’m typing on pieces of A4. I can’t write in Outline or Draft view. They just feel wrong. It’s almost as if I need that primal connection between keys and paper, even if it is only an illusion on a screen.
“I also tend to write stories straight through, from beginning to end, rather than jump around within the narrative. This could be a hangover from writing on a manual typewriter, where there was no choice but to write stories in sequence.
“The advantage Word has over a manual typewriter is the ability to edit on-the-fly. But this can be something of a mixed blessing, as it can lead me to spend all my time tinkering with one sentence instead of pressing ahead with the rest of the story.
“I have looked at other programs, but Word seems to suit me. I am comfortable with it. I write everything in either Times New Roman or Courier New, and so there aren’t too many distracting settings with which to play.”
Read the full article here.
Tags: WordPunk • Writing
