Taking Note!
July 16th, 2010
|
As a writer, albeit a writer who has to squeeze in his writing in between web design and website update duties, I tend to be quite passionate about the technology that I use to assist myself in my creative efforts. I’ve already mentioned (in Q10 – a minimalistic word processor) that my personal writing process tends to involve writing the original draft longhand, then transcribing the draft using a distraction free text editor (I’m currently using PyRoom – it does all that I need) during which, the word count tends to double. Finally, I import that text into a proper word processor (such as Open Office Writer) for the final printable draft.
This then gets printed out, double spaced with 1″ margins on all sides, and edited. I use a red pen to indicate spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. A blue pen suggests additions or changes and a green pen is for notes or messages to myself.
|
 |
These notes and messages might be as follows…. “Make this more fluid. It’s all stop/start!”
“He would never say something like that! Put yourself into his shoes and say it as he would!”
“Need to develop this. This nasty habit could come in useful later on?”
The editor in me can be quite critical (and often very rude) to the writer side of my personality!
I do, however, spend a lot of time wondering if this is the best way for me to get my words down on paper – where they belong.
It seems to me to be rather a long, drawn out process with me handling the words more times than perhaps I need to.
So, going about it in reverse order, lets take a look at what I actually do…..
Human Editing
For some reason, I personally don’t see the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors easily unless I’m reading printed copy. I’m not sure why this is but I do feel that I’m not totally alone in this.
During this stage of the process, even with the additions, the word count tends to drop by about 10%. Whilst this is a somewhat arbitrary figure, if the word count doesn’t drop by that amount, I go back and have another look – 10% seems to be the right amount here.
I must also help that I can (or perhaps need to) take the printed copy into the garden and do the editing away from the distractions of my ofice with the ever incoming emails and feedreader updates.
I don’t think that there’s much to be done to be able to improve of streamline this stage of the process.
I could, of course, print my manuscripts single spaced with smaller margins; this would save on paper but it’s the ink that really costs. In any case, I need all that additional space for making corrections and leaving all those messages to myself!
So, with no realistic changes to be made here, lets take a step back and review the previous stage…
Word Processing
I use Open Office Writer. To be honest, I’d be just as happy to use Microsoft Word. That’s a fine wordprocessor but it would require me to use a Microsoft operating system and I’d have to pay for it (the OS and the program.) As a long time Linux user, both those things go against the grain!
There are, of course, other word processing alternatives. I like AbiWord but Open Office does more and allows me to read and write a wider range of formats. I’ve also tried SoftMaker’s TextMaker and enjoyed using it but it didn’t do anything significantly better for me to want to make the change.
I could, and this makes some kind of sense, cut out the PyRoom text editing stage and type my hand written prose directly into Open Office Writer.
For me though, the text editing stage is vital and I’ve found no better tool than the one that I use.
I’ll explain why…
PyRoom
For getting my hand written scribbles onto the computer I need a distraction free program that assists in the process but doesn’t get in the way.
At this stage of the process I don’t want to be worried about formatting or wordcount; the editor side of me can deal with those things later on.
PyRoom does all that. If I were running Windows I’d be quite happy with Q10 in its place.
During this part of the process, the word count doubles.
I seem to take what I have written by hand and automatically add in all the bits that I missed out.
Scribbling
I need just a certain type of pen (it doesn’t have to be expensive) and a spiral bound notebook (17cm x 22cm) is the best size for me.
Peace and quiet is, of course, important but, I can work very well sat in the beer garden at my local bar.
I don’t get interrupted and the words seems to flow better outside than they do indoors.
Being away from home and being away from the computer both combine to let the words flow more freely.
Summing up….
So, each stage of the process seems to have its own role to play.
I’m fairly sure I couldn’t merge two stages into one and write at the same level (and I’m always aware that even that level isn’t good enough!)
You know, I started this article hoping that I’d come across a technical solution that I could try out.
Perhaps something like installing a minimal OS on a netbook and combining the Scribbling and Pyroom stages (perhaps even adding markup code at this stage to make the Word Processing stage easier.)
But, you know, whereas I can quite happily sit undisturbed scribbling away with a pen and paper, I don’t think it would be the same if I were typing away on a netbook.
Friends (who allow me my privacy whilst I’m writing) might wander over to say… “I was thinking about getting one of those – could you recommend one?” or… “I’ve got one of those but it doesn’t work any more – could you pop round and take a look at it?”
And there’s always the… “if it works, why dick around with it?” point of view.
If I did get a netbook, would the keyboard really be big enough to write on?
And if I got a desktop PC replacement laptop, would I really want to cart it around?
I do have a worrying feeling that the current method of writing is not going to change; unless I can find some sort of creative way of combining it all into one.
All the best
If you liked this article, why not share it with your friends on Facebook
July 28th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
“if it works, why dick around with it?”
Agreed. It does seem like a lot of steps, but if you are comfortable with your process then you should stick with it.