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Typewriter
mdl | May 10 2007
I'm guessing this thread won't get too many responses, but I'll give it a shot nonetheless. Do any of the writers out there use a typewriter as part of their writing process? I've begun to draft my articles, etc. by hand--and it's made the whole writing process a lot less stressful. (With a word processor, I struggled with perfectionism: I used to write a first paragraph, delete it, write it again, polish it, delete it, and so on, until an imminent deadline forced me to pull an all-nighter and pound the whole thing out.) The advantage of the typewriter, of course, is that it forces you to write from begining to end before revising. You can only go forward--this would seem to take away of the urge to tinker with what already been written--it would also seem to raise one's comfort with a sh*tty first draft. I know that I would eventually enter the end product into a computer. But what particularly draws me to the typewriter is the idea of producing one physical page at a time. There's something balanced, measured, and satisfying in this approach. Any one had any success in using a typewriter? If not, does anyone no how to achieve a similar writing process on a computer--i.e., how to enforce the discipline of going forward one page at a time, and not going back until you're done with the whole first draft? Thanks in advance for the advice. 13 Comments
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typewritersSubmitted by teripittman on December 5, 2007 - 4:01pm.
Yes, absolutely you can do this. I just did 69,000 plus words for Nanowrimo. I now use a typewriter daily. It's amazing how much more I get done without the distractions of a computer. Go for it. OCR software isn't great but then I didn't try to tweak it much. Get the story down with a typewriter first then work on revisions later (sometimes this makes more sense on a pc.) Don't listen to the others ;) Accept no substitutes for that typer! » POSTED IN:
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