♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #194
What is your preferred method of writing?
(By hand, on a computer, dictate it?)
Welcome back to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. We appreciate, even more so, when you share our writings with your friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.
When I first began my writing career, all those years ago, I loved starting in a fresh notebook. The idea of typing did not turn me on, although I loved the image of an author hard at work behind a classic Royal. What that boiled down to was still learning to type, and how easy it was to just hand write. Fresh notebooks and new pens are still some of my favorite things, but I have so many unused, because I grew past paper and pen. That said, I still write notes by hand, as well as my blog plan.
Since college, I have written in a computer. The transition began with writing a draft on paper and then when I found I could type faster than write, I put all my work in digital. This still gives me a great deal of stress. Paper is forever, unless tragedy strikes or someone destroys it with purpose. Digital can be gone in the blink of an eye and without warning. Backups can fail. Saving one file over another is frequent.
When I was in college, I requested that a friend of mine read a draft of one of my works, so they could give me some feedback. This was on a Brother word processor. They used 3.5 floppy disks. When she asked which file to save it on, I instructed her incorrectly and lost several chapters. I cried for hours, and I still mourn that loss a little to this day.
Such bad luck is a lesson every writer needs to learn. It teaches us to back up our work, in this modern age of technology. Forgetting to do so will never happen again. You can be assured of that.
On my series, I have begun to take the most important notes needed to complete the project in digital format. More recently, I have been taking digital notes for my blog. Whatever is handiest is what is used at this point.
I cannot say that I will turn from using digital to go back to manual writing. It’s certainly not as fast for me, but it isn’t permanent, either. Regardless, digital is the process, because that is how published books are created. No one takes a typewriter or handwritten version and magically makes it into a book. You have to use a computer.
Let’s hop on over to see what the other author methods are…
I try to periodically send copies of my drafts from one email to the other so there’s a backup there too. Since I’ve done that, I’ve had a lot fewer “oh, crap” moments.
You know… I just started doing that again with my recent wip. it really does help. That’s backed way up by the servers they run.
I can also type faster than I write. It makes sense to use a computer, even though being of the older generation I was used to pen and paper.
Same. very much the same. Once I learned to type, there was no going back.
I worry if I don’t have at least three copies of my books (on different devices, obviously.) Yes, I’m a bit paranoid!
So feel this. I have a back of my back up. email back up. thumbs, etc. paranoid, but safe. LOL
I am intrigued by how many writers still write notes by hand and started off writing by hand. I have never really done anything by hand. A lot of that is to do with my slow handwriting and fast typing.
I wonder if it has to do with a generational thing? I find notes to be far less permanent, so I don’t bother to put them in the computer, or compile them digitally. It’s easy to write on a scrap and then toss it when done. That way I can stay a lot less confused. With all the back ups, sometimes I find notes that are not marked completed, and then I have to check to see if I did do it.