How do you write?

I've just got into keeping a journal of poems and I'm takign interest in and writing a few short stories. Most of them are things in my actual life with interesting twists to make it more readable. But, I don't do any very long stories so I'm into a black pen and my spiral notebook journal.

 

I enjoy typing, mainly because I can get my thoughts out quicker and neater while typing, corrections are made for my spelling, and, theres a thesaurus. of course, i like using my own words, but i enjoy building my vocabulary, also ^-^.

 

I use my notebook and fountain pen or rolling ball pen.
black ink for poems
blue in for Storys
Red in for anything else
then after alll that I will use the computer once everything is all done and put then on on Cd

 

Just curious to know how you all approach writting?

Do you type everything out in a program like Microsoft word?

Or do you write it down by hand?

 

Before I had a computer, I would give myself writer's cramp, filling notebooks (not the laptop kind, I mean the paper kind) with my novels. It was a mammoth task when I first got a computer to type them all out. And in doing so came the inevitable re-writes when I discovered continuity errors or passages that I wasn't so keen on. It was a useful, though time-consuming exercise.

I still handwrite rough ideas, sketches of storylines or characters, that kind of thing, but I am a lot more organised now than I used to be.

What I have on my computer are two sections, one for "Archived" which is stuff that I'm satisfied with as a finished product, and the other for "Work in Progress" for stuff that I'm still messing with.

I also found it a struggle when I used to save a whole novel of say, 200 or 300 pages, as a single document. A real pain scrolling through to find the part I wanted to read or edit. So then I took to saving them in blocks of about 20 or 30 pages, which are easier to navigate. Anything that's very experimental will be saved as another separate document so that I can mess around without deleting or editing the original. If I prefer the original, I can still go back to it.

And ... it probably goes without saying for any writer ... BACKUPS!!! Temporarily I back up on a floppy, and I do a monthly backup on CD. If you don't want to use floppies, then maybe you could use a removable hard drive or other similar storage device, probably more reliable than a floppy. Sometimes I save precious documents as email or email attachments, especially if I need them to be portable from one PC to another.

 

to be frank, i prefer by hand
to be practical, i prefer by computer

 

on me old sanyo wordprocessor (one of those old jobbies, basically a typewriter with a funky lil' LCD green screen) ...... used it about 15yrs, prolly always will

 

Computer, just makes everything easier to edit and such. If it's a difficult scene or I'm just not inspired then will write by hand. Seems to flow better that way.

 

using a computer always seems wrong when writing to me beacuse it feels like someone else is also checking it, its not very personal and its hard to get the writing to flow, especially if that spell check thing comes on.

 

i use a computer, and to really get my creativity flowing I listen to Jeff Buckley,there is just something about that man!

 

Hand. At all times. lol i've actually got special pens and notebooks i take everywhere. but i can't say i tend to use napkins and whathaveyou's at times too...

 

i like both. i use computer more though because it's faster and i don't risk losing any ideas.

 

I always use a computer...since I write slow by hand, and even then, it's unreadable.

 

i paint my words on to plastic bags

 

Both!

I love writing first drafts by hand because it feels much more organic, relaxing, and best of all - it's portable. I can go to the beach, Starbucks (yes I'm a corporate whore and I like Starbucks), or wherever I want with my notebook and pen.

But when it's time to create a finished product, there is no substitute for the computer, due to ease of editing, saving, and overall professionalism.

 

I write poetry and journal-style but most of my writing is just random crap scribbled down on whatever is closest, including blue-jeans.
I love to write it out just...using pen and paper, it just seems that your closer to your words that way (i think i read that somewhere to, but theyre right), but i usually like to put the better peices on the computer cause im afraid to loose it, ha. Both have their benefits

 

I nearly always write by hand. I love the actual physical act of writing, and use journal or notebook rambling to practise my handwriting. Writing on paper seems to help that creativity flow... typing always seems to take away from the emotion of creating a piece for me.

 

i prefer writing by hand

 

mainly i put all my poetry on notes when im out around and then pout them on the pc whne i get home. but pc is what i finnaly use to print it out.

 

I kinda like a keyboard now that I know what to do. Some days I'm so good at it, I only need one finger.

I wrote my first novel by hand, and I still write myself a lot of little notes by hand, but yeah - I use the computer.