Just writing here. Typing with one hand, and holding my cigarette with the other. I just can’t do anything with a cigarette in my mouth (the smoke gets in my eyes), so I type with the thumb and ring finger of my cigarette hand.
When I quit, I shall once again type with all my fingers, the way I learned in a ninth grade typing class.
I always find it interesting the way that writers get their stuff on the paper or screen.
Clive Barker, for instance, must write his first drafts in longhand, and then he types them out.
Rod Serling would dictate everything into a recorder, and then have a secretary type it up.
David Milch lies down in front of a huge monitor hooked up to a computer, and has an assistant type things out as he says them.
Nick Tosches uses a typewriter, but only types with the index finger of his right hand. He does not say anything about how he capitalizes words. Perhaps, if he is using an electric typewriter, he hits the Caps Lock key, types the letter, and then disengages the key.
There was another writer, whose name I have forgotten, who only used a specific type of round pencil. Hexagonal pencils bit into his fingers, he said.
I write in longhand from time to time, and use either Pilot V5 pens, or Uniball Micro pens. The size of the point is .5 millimeters, which is the same thickness as the thin pick that I use to play guitar.
When I get an idea, I’ll reach into my back pocket, in which I keep a small spiral notebook of index cards. I always keep a pen in my front right pocket. I suppose I could use the Notes app on my phone, but I enjoy scribbling out ideas.
If I don’t have paper and pen on me, I feel wrong, somehow. I feel as if some thought will enter my mind worth writing about, and that I won’t be able to catch it as it buzzes around. When I lose an idea this way, I always feel as if this was the idea that would become a song or story or essay or book or screenplay that would catapult me to superstardom.
Most of the time, when I write, I type things out on a computer of some sort. In the mornings, I tend to use my laptop, but during the day, I use my microtop, which is a Bluetooth keyboard and my cell phone. I type things into an app called Scrivener, and then sync it to my laptop so that I can edit it later.
There have been times that I’ve typed things out on my microtop, and then posted them to my blog. I always like when I do that, because I feel as if I’m serving bread fresh from the oven. I particularly like it when the entry includes a picture that I took right then and there with my phone, as it makes me feel like a sort of portable chronicler of what’s going on in the world.
I type things out because when I write, there are so many words inside me that it’s frustrating the way writing in longhand slows me down. My handwriting is actually quite neat, but gets increasingly illegible with my writing speed. Consequently, when I scribble out a lengthy note after a burst of inspiration, the handwriting tends to make a person suspect that I am writing a ransom note, or a manifesto about the dangers of technology that I penned in a lonely cabin, far away from the rest of the world, sacks of fertilizer all around.
I have said, many times, that if I am to post something every day that some of these essays may not be the most profound thing in the world. Today, I simply tell you the way that I write. It is this little window into how one person gets his ideas out into the world, and I hope you enjoyed the view.
When I quit, I shall once again type with all my fingers, the way I learned in a ninth grade typing class.
I always find it interesting the way that writers get their stuff on the paper or screen.
Clive Barker, for instance, must write his first drafts in longhand, and then he types them out.
Rod Serling would dictate everything into a recorder, and then have a secretary type it up.
David Milch lies down in front of a huge monitor hooked up to a computer, and has an assistant type things out as he says them.
Nick Tosches uses a typewriter, but only types with the index finger of his right hand. He does not say anything about how he capitalizes words. Perhaps, if he is using an electric typewriter, he hits the Caps Lock key, types the letter, and then disengages the key.
There was another writer, whose name I have forgotten, who only used a specific type of round pencil. Hexagonal pencils bit into his fingers, he said.
I write in longhand from time to time, and use either Pilot V5 pens, or Uniball Micro pens. The size of the point is .5 millimeters, which is the same thickness as the thin pick that I use to play guitar.
When I get an idea, I’ll reach into my back pocket, in which I keep a small spiral notebook of index cards. I always keep a pen in my front right pocket. I suppose I could use the Notes app on my phone, but I enjoy scribbling out ideas.
If I don’t have paper and pen on me, I feel wrong, somehow. I feel as if some thought will enter my mind worth writing about, and that I won’t be able to catch it as it buzzes around. When I lose an idea this way, I always feel as if this was the idea that would become a song or story or essay or book or screenplay that would catapult me to superstardom.
Most of the time, when I write, I type things out on a computer of some sort. In the mornings, I tend to use my laptop, but during the day, I use my microtop, which is a Bluetooth keyboard and my cell phone. I type things into an app called Scrivener, and then sync it to my laptop so that I can edit it later.
There have been times that I’ve typed things out on my microtop, and then posted them to my blog. I always like when I do that, because I feel as if I’m serving bread fresh from the oven. I particularly like it when the entry includes a picture that I took right then and there with my phone, as it makes me feel like a sort of portable chronicler of what’s going on in the world.
I type things out because when I write, there are so many words inside me that it’s frustrating the way writing in longhand slows me down. My handwriting is actually quite neat, but gets increasingly illegible with my writing speed. Consequently, when I scribble out a lengthy note after a burst of inspiration, the handwriting tends to make a person suspect that I am writing a ransom note, or a manifesto about the dangers of technology that I penned in a lonely cabin, far away from the rest of the world, sacks of fertilizer all around.
I have said, many times, that if I am to post something every day that some of these essays may not be the most profound thing in the world. Today, I simply tell you the way that I write. It is this little window into how one person gets his ideas out into the world, and I hope you enjoyed the view.
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