Journal

Technological Conveniences

I’m not a very traditional writer.

That is to say that I don’t like writing long hand on paper; I don’t use typewriters though I’d very much like my own; and I have a notebook but it sometimes just isn’t enough.

Sometimes, I still write long hand. But that’s very rare, and it usually ends up with me doing more writing than I probably should, given how I will most likely end up rewriting it several times. I’m just correction-prone. But my rare venture into pen-and-paper territory has more to do with the way I’ve learnt to work.

In general, I write in a bunch of fragments. I have these things in my head that I can use so I put them all down in roughly chronological order and it gives me an idea of where to go and what to do. I’m just that way. And usually I can find something to do to some part somewhere so I don’t spend a lot of time getting stuck very often. It’s a curious cross between the inspiration behind the work and the more mechanical side to it.

So, what I mean is, thank goodness for word processors. Because I don’t write linearly and correct massively as I go along, I can’t really use long hand (unless I do flash cards, which is probably more trouble than it’s worth), and I don’t do typewriters too.

I also have a lovely red Moleskine notebook. I’ve been using notebooks for a long time now. It’s a habit I picked up in secondary school, when I was a silly young boy who liked to plot silly young boy things. The planning was just the most wonderful part of it all back then. (It probably isn’t any longer.)

But sometimes, a notebook isn’t enough. Say I’m at some social function, or maybe I’m waiting at a traffic light for the green man to appear. Suddenly a line occurs to me, or something. An idea, perhaps. It’s just not really all that feasible to start retrieving my notebook and my stationery. Most of the time, I note these down in SMS form.

Besides these examples, I usually do up a to-do list for work on a Notepad file. It’s faster than writing it out, and changing it is a lot simpler. Also, my only link with the outside world while I work is technological. I communicate with people online and I keep myself in touch with the news on the computer. I’m not really one of those writers who sits down with impenetrable concentration and refuses to talk to anyone. I’d probably go insane.

And music. I’d be swapping a lot of CDs if my music wasn’t digital. And I more or less cannot work without music.

Technology is wonderful.

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© 2010 a modest odyssey.