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silveradept[Welcome back to December Days. This year, thanks to a suggestion from alexseanchai, I'm writing about writing. Suggestions for topics are most definitely welcome! There's still a lot of space to cover.]
The short answer to the question of "What do I write with?" is the same as the question of "How do I arrange my workspace?"
Do what works.
For some people, specific brands of notebooks and pens are what they need for writing so they can scratch legible lines in ink at the speed they need to go. Others clack along at the speed of typewriter or keyboard, letting their computer handle the difficulties of translating thoughts to words to stories. I'm fairly certain someone has dictated a novel before, I'm even more certain some people use dictation software to take notes as they think alone, and anyone who works in podfic or audiobooks has had to talk the whole thing into a microphone and then make sure that it's all audible and understandable.
I do a remarkable amount of composition on mobile devices, myself. It does mean that autocucumber bites me in the backside a lot, and that sometimes I get frustrated with the swiping keyboard because it refuses to read my mind and do the thing I want instead of what it keeps doing when I put in the same sequence of swipes. Sometimes I have to do the sequence slower so that it recognizes what I'm trying to type, and then it understands. That can get in the way of the flow of writing, and it does mean sometimes having to stop and think about how a word gets spelled, because good swiping relies on knowing some approximation of the spelling.
As for what program to use, if you use a program, well, or can be as fancy or as stripped-down as needed. I tend to compose on basic text editors that offer wrapping for lines, and I am now more recently doing significant composing in a service that synchronizes my progress from one device to another, so that I don't always have to write on a particular device. And, in case of a device misbehaving or running out of battery, I can pick up where I left off on a different device while sorting out the one that's not active. Others have more robust text editors and document formatting going on, in word professors and the like, which is rather handy when you plan on turning the whole thing into a printed work, or if you don't have enough of the formatting code in your own head to be able to compose structure along with the text as you go. (This is the sort of thing, I think, that languages like Markdown were intended for - to produce human-readable text that could also them be converted into formatted text when run through a parser.) I'm pretty sure there are people that compose to things like Written? Kitten! (which I note can now be used to reward with images of anything that you would like, so long as it is tagged in Flickr) and other services that help your reward center keep going by providing you will pictures of adorable animals or whatever else you would like to keep seeing more of as you continue to compose.
There are also plenty of other tools out there for composition that also include helpful author tools, like outline mapping, character biographies, and other metadata to help someone keep everything they need when writing a novel to hand, but a lot of people I know seem to gravitate to Scrivener because it includes a lot of tools that could be helpful in a writing project, to keep research, outlines, and the rest at hand, all in a single container while working on the manuscript itself.
Scrivener is probably overkill for many projects. But it does have uses, and if you think you might be one of those people it will be useful for, I'm not going to knock you for having it. Much like I'm not going to be judgey if you want to do a lot of research before starting your writing, but research is an easy hole to get lost in, and to use as an excuse to not actually write. Remember, you're already good enough. Anything you add on top of that is excellent (and sometimes necessary if you want to get something right in a way that won't make your readers upset at you), but for practice purposes, what you have already is probably enough.
The environment that you work best in is your best environment for work. For some people, that means cordoning off a room to the purpose of writing and making sure that they are not disturbed in the process that has been set aside for them. (Much easier to do if you don't have smallings or animals in your household, I assure you.) Some people can compose in the presence of others, but with everyone working along silently and the only sound being the tapping of keys as they go along. Some people can compose in the middle of a crowded bus stop, because they're waiting for the next one and it's not like anybody is going anywhere any time soon. Some people like the bustle of the coffee shop, others use it essentially to ensure that they get away from the things that threaten to distract them so they can most assuredly get their composition done in the time that they've set aside for it.
I tend to like background music for composition, but that can be difficult to achieve unless you're in a space where everyone wants background music and they all have enough of the same tastes that background music makes sense. More likely, there's going to be an investment in a good pair of cans to make it so that there is the music requested, but the sound itself isn't leaking out into the composition area to disturb the other people in the space. And, preferably, a lack of wires to get in the way. But that's in the future. (And, terribly, may not be all that great, since I still haven't managed to change the fact that my hearing in one ear is worse than the other, a thing that only became very apparent this year. Joy.) My music of choice is not necessarily anyone else's, and I have no desire to sonically pollute the environment.
This is all subjective, anyway. Do what works. If a tool, environment, setting, or musical choice is good for you, do it. If not, you can discard it equally easily. There is no one secret way of writing that guarantees success, fame, and fortune (and those last two are mostly based upon the whims of things outside of your control, like publisher investment and whether you are striking the right cord with the right people at the right time), so don't bother trying to do it any way but yours, once you have an idea what your way might actually be. Tools are just that, tools.
alexseanchai, I'm writing about writing. Suggestions for topics are most definitely welcome! There's still a lot of space to cover.]The short answer to the question of "What do I write with?" is the same as the question of "How do I arrange my workspace?"
Do what works.
For some people, specific brands of notebooks and pens are what they need for writing so they can scratch legible lines in ink at the speed they need to go. Others clack along at the speed of typewriter or keyboard, letting their computer handle the difficulties of translating thoughts to words to stories. I'm fairly certain someone has dictated a novel before, I'm even more certain some people use dictation software to take notes as they think alone, and anyone who works in podfic or audiobooks has had to talk the whole thing into a microphone and then make sure that it's all audible and understandable.
I do a remarkable amount of composition on mobile devices, myself. It does mean that autocucumber bites me in the backside a lot, and that sometimes I get frustrated with the swiping keyboard because it refuses to read my mind and do the thing I want instead of what it keeps doing when I put in the same sequence of swipes. Sometimes I have to do the sequence slower so that it recognizes what I'm trying to type, and then it understands. That can get in the way of the flow of writing, and it does mean sometimes having to stop and think about how a word gets spelled, because good swiping relies on knowing some approximation of the spelling.
As for what program to use, if you use a program, well, or can be as fancy or as stripped-down as needed. I tend to compose on basic text editors that offer wrapping for lines, and I am now more recently doing significant composing in a service that synchronizes my progress from one device to another, so that I don't always have to write on a particular device. And, in case of a device misbehaving or running out of battery, I can pick up where I left off on a different device while sorting out the one that's not active. Others have more robust text editors and document formatting going on, in word professors and the like, which is rather handy when you plan on turning the whole thing into a printed work, or if you don't have enough of the formatting code in your own head to be able to compose structure along with the text as you go. (This is the sort of thing, I think, that languages like Markdown were intended for - to produce human-readable text that could also them be converted into formatted text when run through a parser.) I'm pretty sure there are people that compose to things like Written? Kitten! (which I note can now be used to reward with images of anything that you would like, so long as it is tagged in Flickr) and other services that help your reward center keep going by providing you will pictures of adorable animals or whatever else you would like to keep seeing more of as you continue to compose.
There are also plenty of other tools out there for composition that also include helpful author tools, like outline mapping, character biographies, and other metadata to help someone keep everything they need when writing a novel to hand, but a lot of people I know seem to gravitate to Scrivener because it includes a lot of tools that could be helpful in a writing project, to keep research, outlines, and the rest at hand, all in a single container while working on the manuscript itself.
Scrivener is probably overkill for many projects. But it does have uses, and if you think you might be one of those people it will be useful for, I'm not going to knock you for having it. Much like I'm not going to be judgey if you want to do a lot of research before starting your writing, but research is an easy hole to get lost in, and to use as an excuse to not actually write. Remember, you're already good enough. Anything you add on top of that is excellent (and sometimes necessary if you want to get something right in a way that won't make your readers upset at you), but for practice purposes, what you have already is probably enough.
The environment that you work best in is your best environment for work. For some people, that means cordoning off a room to the purpose of writing and making sure that they are not disturbed in the process that has been set aside for them. (Much easier to do if you don't have smallings or animals in your household, I assure you.) Some people can compose in the presence of others, but with everyone working along silently and the only sound being the tapping of keys as they go along. Some people can compose in the middle of a crowded bus stop, because they're waiting for the next one and it's not like anybody is going anywhere any time soon. Some people like the bustle of the coffee shop, others use it essentially to ensure that they get away from the things that threaten to distract them so they can most assuredly get their composition done in the time that they've set aside for it.
I tend to like background music for composition, but that can be difficult to achieve unless you're in a space where everyone wants background music and they all have enough of the same tastes that background music makes sense. More likely, there's going to be an investment in a good pair of cans to make it so that there is the music requested, but the sound itself isn't leaking out into the composition area to disturb the other people in the space. And, preferably, a lack of wires to get in the way. But that's in the future. (And, terribly, may not be all that great, since I still haven't managed to change the fact that my hearing in one ear is worse than the other, a thing that only became very apparent this year. Joy.) My music of choice is not necessarily anyone else's, and I have no desire to sonically pollute the environment.
This is all subjective, anyway. Do what works. If a tool, environment, setting, or musical choice is good for you, do it. If not, you can discard it equally easily. There is no one secret way of writing that guarantees success, fame, and fortune (and those last two are mostly based upon the whims of things outside of your control, like publisher investment and whether you are striking the right cord with the right people at the right time), so don't bother trying to do it any way but yours, once you have an idea what your way might actually be. Tools are just that, tools.
