Welp, I Ordered Me a Chromebook

A surprisingly hard act to follow!

Some personal history: although I've traditionally written a goodly portion of first drafts by hand (speaking primarily of fiction here), once I get the ball rolling it's nice to have the speed of a keyboard--not to mention it's nice not to have to do quite as much double work, reentering all the text.

On the other hand, I have the attention span of a gnat, and a fully capable large screened computer offers many distractions. Also, having my text all spread out on a big screen a) makes it feel like I'm filling a water tower one drop at a time and b) makes me inclined to endless editing, since I can scan back through bunches of text at once and find fault with it. I compose most of my blog posts in a small Notepad window on my big screen, but that's not really practical for longer work.

Several years back, I discovered and fell in love with Renaissance Learning's Alphasmart word processors, specifically the Neo. They were rugged, their battery life could be measured in months or even years, they displayed just a few lines of text at a time, and they had a great keyboard. Basically, they were a miniature portable typewriter that saved to memory instead of paper. They only did one thing, but they did it well. I've loved mine. However, there are a few caveats: first of all, getting text from the device to the computer can be fairly time consuming and requires cables. I loathe cables. I lose cables. Secondly, the thing looks like a business class Speak and Spell. I never got truly comfortable with using it out in the public eye.

For some time, I've been longing for an Alphasmart successor: a simple, highly portable, unpretentious device which would allow me to create documents and sync them wirelessly.

I briefly owned a lipstick pink Samsung netbook and still remember it with fondness--I wrote a ridiculous number of short stories on that thing--but it was so slow, especially when booting up, and backing up my documents or syncing the between computers took a bit of thought. It was close, but no cigar.

A few years ago, Chromebooks began to pop up. I was mildly intrigued. Google has been a friend of mine since the days of invite-only G-mail and I already had quite a few documents in the Google eco-system. However, at the time, Chromebooks didn't really have any off-line capability (though I'm usually connected, I'd like that now and again), and were almost a public beta. I liked the concept, but didn't feel like they were ready for prime time.

The current crop feels a lot more polished to me, and I've decided to take the leap. I ordered an Asus Flip C100. This device is part tablet as well as part mini-laptop. The keyboard is small, but actually a bit bigger than the netbook of old, so I'm not too worried. It only has a 10.1 inch screen (tablet sized), but it's a nice bright IPS panel, and although 1200x800 is low for a tablet, it's better than the old netbook. I think it'll be very comfortable.

On top of all that, it has a touch screen, and if you flip the keyboard back, you can use it as a tablet. Granted, Chrome OS isn't really optimized for touch right now, and the screen is no iPad Retina thing, but my primary use case would be browsing or looking at PDFs, and I think it will be just fine for that.

You can also stand it up tent style, or flip the keyboard back far enough to use as a stand for watching movies (Netflix and Amazon Prime should both work) or displaying recipes. That covers just about everything I'd like to be able to do with a small portable device. Document editing comes above all, but I've never owned a tablet and, while I'm not expecting anything like iPad performance, I'm intrigued by the possibilities.

It should be here sometime in the next week. More thoughts once I've had a chance to incorporate it into my workflow. It could be the perfect first draft machine--if I can avoid the siren call of other Chrome tabs. The little guy only weighs about two pounds and will fit easily in my writing bag for coffee shop trips and lunch breaks. Best of all, whatever I type will instantly be available from my other computers.

A bonus: this is childish, but I've always kind of wanted to put stickers all over a computer, but have never had one I felt I could decorate like that. I am *so* gonna sticker this little thing once the brand new wears off.

Anyway, I'm tentatively excited.

(If) There Can Be Only One

(Epic fail at doodling a recognizable fountain pen...but that's a subject for another day...)

This post is partially inspired by a question in a recent letter from Justin: no doubt bemused by the too-many pens I brought to the type-in, he asked which I preferred, fountain pens or typewriters. My answer to that question, I'll leave to the response letter (Cliff Notes version: it depends), but it led me to ponder a related question: what if you had to choose?

Imagine one day you were told that you had to pick a single writing technology, whether it be pencils, typewriters, fountain pens, ballpoints, Alphasmarts, computers, stylus on clay tablets, sky writing, or what-have-you. (In this fantasy world, this particular choice doesn't affect what we use at work, and we'd still have the Internets and all--this would just be what you'd use for first drafts, or bulk writing of whatever you tend to write: poems, letters, short stories, novels, essays, whatever. In other words, the device you use first to get ideas out of your head and into the world.)

Hopefully I won't be disowned by the typosphere and pencil comrades alike for admitting it...but I think if someone held a proverbial gun to my head (drat those proverbial guns!) and I *had* to choose, I'd go with fountain pens. Yes, they're slower than anything with a keyboard and fussier by far than a pencil, but I like the way I think with one in my hand, and the look of wet ink on a page, and the feel of a good nib on good paper. I like their easy portability and quiet nature (I'm still not one who's going to pull out a typewriter at work or a coffee house). I like the way they make me slow down and consider what I'm composing and yet let me cross out and continue without breaking stride. I like the immediacy and directness of hand-on-pen-on-paper: much as I like typewriters, there are some times when they make me feel as though I'm trying to do delicate work with heavy gloves on--as though there's a barrier in the way.

What about you? If push came to shove, would you cling to typewriterly clickity-clack? Pen or pencil and paper? Become a die-hard Alphasmartian? Or would you reluctantly set aside all the more tangible tools and retreat to the speed and convenience of a computer? Or, to throw another option out there, would you choose something wordless, like a camera? What would you pick, and why?

All that said...I'm really glad I don't have to choose!

Cave in

1. Cave in #1
Well, after resisting various posts on the subject for a bit over a year, I've finally given into temptation and ordered a clicky keyboard from Unicomp.



It should be here Tuesday. I'm trying to resist the urge to check UPS for status updates every five minutes. I'll report fully after a few days of using the thing.

2. Cave-in #2
I still have about a chapter left to go on my '09 NaNo, but I'm stalling on actually writing by working on the digitization instead. Actually, it's not really stalling--I need this time to get back into the story, since I abandoned the poor thing for so long. I started out typing things up on the Neo, but in the last week, I started doing OCR instead. The mini version of OmniPage that comes with the inexpensive Canon scanners is actually really good--at least for fairly dark type and certain typefaces. It really likes the SG-1. As I'm getting into the later pages, when I was debating whether or not to change the ribbon, it's a little more challenging. Still a lot faster than retyping, and with all the going over the text I have to do, still a good review and opportunity to do a first-pass edit. I'll be printing it up to really hack away at after this part is done.

3. Other update-just-to-update type jabbering: After years of hearing their ads and thinking, "hey, betcha that'd be a cool place to visit," I finally went to Shipwreck Beads with my sister yesterday. I *love* beaded earrings, but have never gotten into making them. She does a bit. I'm gonna have to learn.



That place is overwhelming. Good golly. Imagine a grocery store sized place of nothing but beads and associated crafty things, in all sorts of colors and shapes and sizes and textures and materials. There are strings of beads, drawers and drawers full of charms, loose beads of all sorts, from tiny shell beads to big blown glass beads and everything in between. Also these funky little rubber beads, which I wanted to buy in great quantities just to handle.

You carry a little tray through the store to pick out what you want, writing down codes for any loose stuff, like at a hardware store. For the more intrepid shoppers, they even had carts with space where you could lay out bunches of trays, and pegs for hanging stringed beads and such like.

We didn't spend much, partly just because there was too much to take in on a first trip. Wayyy too much. Margaret got a few beads and earring supplies and we walked out, a little dazed. We'll have to go back.

Also, after we got back from the bead store, I finally did a dry-run for my new bike commute on the trail from the new house. It's not a bad ride, *except* for a *different* fun busy-four-lane-road crossing, where you either have to go a lonnng way out of the way to get to a very slow traffic light and wait to cross at the crosswalk, OR do what 95% of folks do and wait for a gap in traffic, dash for the median, wait for another gap, and run like mad for the other side. It's like real life Frogger. Lots of fun. At least the rest of the ride is simple and entirely off roads. Lots of people around still, but that's OK.


My bike is purty.

NaNoWriMo Redux (IOW TGIO)

Thank goodness it's over: the 50k words, at least. I have a few more scenes to finish in the draft, but that, too, is almost complete--I think writing short stories has helped me pace the story a little better, without a whole lot of floundering around trying to kill time before the conclusion. All the same, this was *not* an easy NaNoWriMo for me, and I am already thinking of throwing in the towel on next year's behalf. I think NaNoWriMo has run its course with me, and I've learned a lot through it, but it's time for us to part ways. It isn't fun anymore.

It wasn't that I had nothing to write about. I did. I had plenty of ideas. Actually, for once, I had the basic gist of the story in mind months beforehand: I started making character and plot notes clear back in June. A lot of them ended up not applying--a minor character who didn't even have a name until the last couple days of October became the female lead, and other secondary characters that were supposed to have fairly major parts slid off the screen almost immediately, but at least some elements lived on. I never truly got stuck with nothing to write next.

But I like to "remember" what I'm writing. I picture a scene, rehearse it in my head while driving or walking or lying in bed or doing the dishes until it's pretty close to right, then write it. You can't do that during NaNo. You have to just keep throwing words out. And I can't really get an entire story pictured in my head beforehand. Ever. Personalities change, or I realize the time line doesn't work (and this year's time line, simple as it was, gave me headaches), or someone needs an alibi or...something.

I wrote all throughout the year this year. Some of my writing, in my humble opinion, wasn't appallingly bad. Producing even a rough draft this thin and pale and disjointed makes me want to weep and pull my hair out. To make matters worse, I love my characters this year. I can picture them more clearly than ever before. And I let them down. I'm not sure if I can fix this story or not. I very much hope so, for their sake. I hope I can paint them as I see them, instead of the dim shadows in a flimsy shadowy world they currently are.

I did come to a new appreciation for the Alphasmart Neo--I switched to it from the wondrous Olympia SG-1 a little more than halfway through the month when it became apparent I was going to need to squeeze in more writing time, especially away from home. It had been neglected a bit this past year, but as I've said here before, it is the most practical writing implement I own. You get all the benefits of instant digital copy in a very durable, highly portable package, with instant-on, instant-save and all but limitless battery life. Someday computers may obtain those particular qualities, but for the moment, there isn't a gadget out there that completely compares. It's a very unromantic little thing, but it sure gets the job done. I'll switch to the netbook/computer for editing, but for pure writing, no current computer can hold a candle to the Neo.

Soundtrack for this year ended up being Matchbox Twenty, Ad Vielle Que Pourra, and various Harry Connick Jr. albums. There is no rhyme or reason to this. It just happens.

I should be able to finish the first draft in the next two weeks. And then, I guess I need to decide if I want to try to dive in and work on it right off, when I'm still a little jaded and a little too close to it, or put it away for a few months.

And speaking of jaded, by next fall, I may have forgotten all about this crabbiness. It was partially just a perfect storm of lack of morning writing time, colds, and life getting in the way. And maybe my story isn't so bad after all. Parts of it are pretty OK. Maybe NaNoWriMo '10 isn't *completely* out of the question. Whoa, do I have conviction or what?

Somewhere in the vicinity of 1200

That's how many words I got in before work today. The Alphasmart Neo and I went to the coffee house, where I picked a table where I could sit with my back to the wall to lessen the feeling that people were reading over my shoulder, plunked down a square of anti-slip foam (it makes the Neo quieter and less apt to walk away), took the Neo out of its slipcase, and proceeded to blast away as though I *wasn't* self-conscious as all get out. Now if I can just do the same at least once more tonight at home, I'll be well on my way toward getting caught up again.

I know, I know, I'm welching on the Brigade (which is probably unwise). But it's easier to produce lots of words on the Neo, especially when I get away from the house and all access to the eeeevil Internets. The downside is that I'll almost certainly need to pare that 1200 down to about 800 (exaggerating slightly for effect). I guess that, in the end, is the real difference between writing methods: it all comes down to what's required in the editing. My longhand writing tends to be very sparse, without a ton of description, but with much character chatter. Neo writing has lots of description and can get a little repetitive: I can't see more than seven (currently) lines at a time, which means I may forget I already just said that in a slightly different way. And typewritten work has some of the benefits and downsides of both: sometimes it'll end up being just the bones, sometimes I go over the top just for the joy of typing, and often the sentences are a little convoluted because I start writing them without quite knowing where I'm going to go and don't have a way to fix as I go like I do on the Neo. I haven't made up my mind which method is easiest to edit all the way.

I will say this: another benefit/downside to the Neo is that it's dull as dishwater. It does one thing--writing--and does it in a way that makes it disappear as you use it. There are no lovely tactile sensations, so machine smells, no colored inks to play with. There is nothing (except, I suppose, the word count feature) to fiddle with or procrastinate over. In the last week of NaNo and in the throes of burnout, this is a good thing.

Oh, and if you're ever in the region of Mudbay Coffee Roasters in Olympia, may I recommend the honey apple bran muffin? I know, I know, you're thinking, "Bran muffin? Bran muffin??" Just trust me on this. It is teh awesome.

Neocast: Confessions of a NaNo procrastinator

Well, I'm officially behind in NaNo world. This doesn't usually happen to me. I'm not one of those obnoxious overachievers who write ten thousand words in the first few days and finish the fifty thousand within the first week or two at most, but I usually stay slightly ahead of the game, coasting over the finish line comfortably ahead of schedule on about the 25th. But this year has been something of a struggle. In addition to my run in with the law, I've had quite a number of days when I wasn't able to get in a morning writing session because of appointments or having to be at work before hours. Lack of morning writing time is the kiss of death for me--I find writing in the evening to be a serious and often futile struggle. I've also not been able to squeeze in lunchtime writing--even fifteen minutes of writing by hand would help, but work has been busy and I've been trying to do the whole thing on the typewriter, which I can't easily use at work, so that's been out.

And now I have a cold. And my ribbon is getting light(er) but I feel guilty about changing it when there are starving writers elsewhere with ribbons in shabbier condition than mine, so I just keep using it and feeling dissatisfied. And I miss the coffee house but know I'd get nothing done if I went there with a typewriter--I'd end up setting it aside in embarrassment and diving into a book.

To add to my crabbiness, I'm now at that horrible part in the novel when I no longer feel capable of picking the perfect words--something that seemed to come easily in the first twenty thousand words or so--and the climax is still a long way away, and I have words to write in order to get there--necessary words, and I more or less know what events have to happen, so it's not just fill, but...ugh. I'm not feelin' it. And my characters keep babbling about nothing--useless stuff I'll have to chisel out later. And to add to the pressure, one of my characters invited a guy she barely knows to her parents' house for Sunday dinner (and there will be lots of extended family, too), and he actually accepted. We're all three of us surprised and nervous and are digging in our heels so hard it's a wonder we aren't going backward. If there's one thing I hate, it's crowds. And for sheer embarrassment and mental anguish, the only thing worse than crowds is a crowd of people who are all related to you: people with a special knack for embarrassing you or angering you because they know you a little better than anyone really has a right to--or think they do, which is even worse. And now I have to not only dive into this experience, but try to recreate it in great detail. I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. So I keep stalling instead.

Tomorrow I may take the Neo to the coffee house (and leave any books at home, so it's either write or sit there staring off into space with a funky looking object laying on the table in front of me) and see if I can dash off a few thousand words in the morning. OK, so it isn't a typewriter. It also doesn't weigh fifteen or twenty pounds, and I don't have to worry about carrying along paper or fret that I'm bothering people with my noisy clack ding routine. I would say it's the most practical writing machine I own (sorry gang, but it's true), and I should probably take more advantage of that. I'm not sure it's any less likely to make me a pariah, however. We need some special hats for Alphasmartians venturing off into public places, too....

Snobbery, Guilt and the Writing Life

So...back, for a moment, to the meandering writing-about-writing essay posts instead of yet another UJTU.

For no logical reason and no personal historical reason I can think of, writing for me is a hobby which I mention in a whisper, blushing, turning away. I announce proudly that I play music, however badly; I'll happily talk about my limited crocheting skills with anyone who is interested; I blather on contentedly about my pets, the books I've read, my dabbling with calligraphy, my bike--anything and everything else. But I mention my writing habit only in passing; guiltily and slightly defiantly as if confessing to compulsive gambling or a drinking problem, daring someone to help me mend my ways.

I think it's partly for this reason that the more obvious tools of the trade--machines that can be used for nothing else--are something I have a very hard time revealing in public. I've taken my Neo with me to the coffee house dozens of times, gotten it out a handful of times, written maybe a few hundred words at best. Oh, when I took it to write-ins in Colorado, I used it a lot, when I knew I was in the company of other addicts who would overlook my flaws, but in general...I feel all eyes on me, and I want to drop through the floor. Pen and paper are a refuge in public, because I could be doing anything: homework, a journal (which seems less wrong, somehow, than "real" writing), business work. But typewriters and Alphasmarts are the tools of the author: blatant, in your face, pure writing machines. Couple that with the idea of the unmistakable look-at-me sound of a busy typewriter, and I'm terrified.

I suppose I feel like an impostor, a pretender, a poseur. And then, I tell myself, "real" writers don't need to take refuge in tools, in the romance of obsolete tools and beautiful gadgets. Real writers simply write.

Which brings me to the second portion of this mind-wandering: despite all of what I've said above, I like writing tools, particularly those that do nothing else. I get obsessed with pens and typewriters. I love the physicality of writing in analog, the smell of a typewriter and the feel of pressing the keys, the sound of them, the bell at the end of a line; I like the look of fountain pen ink drying on a page, feel of a smooth nib on good paper; I love the crinkle of pages, the heft of them. I feel like I write better with these things, write differently than I do with the current, typical tools. But is that real? Or is that a trick of the mind--do I like tinkering with them, and therefore convince myself that they work better for me so I have an excuse to use them instead of more efficient and common means? And if so, does it really matter? If it works for me, if I enjoy it, why should I care how I make the journey or what others think? But I remain afraid that I'll be seen as a snob: as pursuing a romantic notion of what it means to write, to the detriment of actually writing.

And above all, *am* I that snob? I wonder sometimes. If I completely let go of the tools and just used word processors like everyone else, would my writing really suffer? In comparing work done on the computer with work I've started on paper--one way or another--I'm not sure. I think I do better with clear drafts, but how much of that is a mental block?

Aaaand, on a somewhat lighter note, despite all of the above, I admit to spending some time over the last few days cruising eBay and what-have-you for smallish, quietish typers with the idea of, at the least, doing some outdoor typing come spring. I'm down to four portables and could drop that further, and the smallest typewriter I have with a reliable case is the heavier of the SM-9s. Not exactly easy to drag around. I've kind of been looking at Lettera 32s, despite my apathetic comments in the past re: their appearance. Too bad there don't seem to be that many of them around at a decent price...and I *never* see them locally.

Writing in the pink

Well, I did it. I bought a little netbook. I know...it's probably right before the next big thing, and I probably should have waited, but this is my usual MO. And honestly, there's nothing on the horizon that really makes a difference to me. I don't need the ability to watch heavy-duty video on a netbook, I'm OK with not getting Windows 7 the instant it hits the shelves, and the price on this model just dropped (at least in some places on-line) because there's a new replacement model out.

It's a Samsung NC10, and it's pink and white. Yes, pink. A nice pink--dark and sparkly, not pastel or bubblegum. I admit I mostly bought pink because it was the cheapest, but I like it. It's gloss, so it does pick up fingerprints like nobody's business, but it's pretty.

And the keyboard is pretty darned comfortable. I'm impressed thus far. Small, but very solid. Some of the buttons are in slightly odd places or are smaller than normal size (most noteably the arrow/end/page up and down keys), but not nearly as much so as most of the other netbooks I examined at Best Buy before mail ordering. I could touch type straight off, at least on the letter keys. Given a little bit more time, I don't believe it will be any more of an adjustment than going from a computer to a typewriter or a desktop to a laptop or any of the above to the Alphasmart. Speaking of which, somehow my brain has it identified as an Alphasmart, so I keep trying Alphasmart key combination and navigating with arrow keys instead of just using the l'il touchpad. Note to self: CTRL-W is *not* a good key combo to keep hitting in regular Windows applications! This is punishment for being a compulsive word count checker, it would seem.

I have it loaded up with Open Office, yWriter5, FreeMind, and very little else, and plan to keep it that way. It came surprisingly free of bloatware. Which, incidentally, is a word accepted by Firefox's spellchecker, unlike touchpad. Strange, that.

I believe I shall call it Mary Sue, after a laptop in one of my own unfinished novels. How narcissistic is that? Don't answer that.

Over the years I've come to be more and more reluctant to review a product until I've spent a good deal of time with it, so this isn't a review. But I will say, if this lives up to my initial impressions, this may well be the laptop I've been looking for since I first became enamored of them ten or twelve years ago when they were still thick heavy bricks with dim, fuzzy screens, clunky pointing devices and miserable battery life. It's lightweight and very portable, it looks like I'll get at least six or seven hours of battery life, the screen is clearer than my other computer, the keyboard feels good, it'll go in my book bag or purse, and it's cute and pretty and pink. There are some other cool little features, too: the mouse gestures it allows are pretty handy--instant zoom-in or out, for one. It of course doesn't have a very big screen, which is mostly an issue when web surfing (something I hope to keep to a minimum on this machine anyhow). It tends to help me focus, since I can really only view one task at a time. Kind of the Alphasmart outlook on life. It does get a little warm, unlike an Alphasmart, and seven hours of battery life pales in comparison with 700. But I can't imagine doing any editing work on an Alphasmart. I avoid even scrolling back to change a word here and there. This should be just fine for that. It isn't a gaming machine and there are far better computers for watching videos and such, but it may be close to the best portable writing machine available at this time.

Added about eight hundred words to another short story in half an hour at the coffee house this morning, which is good considering I was so self-conscious when I first took it out that I wasn't sure I'd be able to write. I wasn't worried about the relative oddity of the thing, but I live in terror lest someone actually read a sentence or two of what I'm writing--something that isn't as much of an issue with handwritten notes. I am a bundle of neuroses.

Procrastination: who needs internet?

I can procrastinate marvelously even whilst on restriction. *sigh*



This gives another point to the Neos and typewriters. Can't do much with them but write. Well...except make typewriter images, but I'm not artistic enough for that.

Now I'm off to a coffee house to write for a bit before work. With a bit of luck, I'll more than make up having a slightly skimpy day yesterday.

Comparative analysis of writing methods, and the editing thereof

With NaNoWriMo upon us, as well as the winter months when I tend to write anyway for lack of anything better to do, I've been even more obsessed than usual with the contemplation of writing and all the accoutrements thereof. Aren't we all? The equipment of writing, I must confess, is one of the biggest draws for me. Writing tools of all kinds have always held fascination for me. There are, of course, many more than I have outlined below, and many more subsets of the ones I do have listed, but these are just my own scratch thoughts.

Pen and paper:

Pros: Convenience is the biggest one. I can write with pen and paper anywhere, and it's the most portable method. Well...it might be tied with the Neo for the most portable, since I don't like writing on pages much smaller than letter size, and the Neo is about that size. But I'm more comfortable with whipping out a legal pad at work to fit in ten minutes or so of writing. I could probably do the same with the Neo at lunch, but then I would be overtly writing. I'm kind of secretive about my life as a fiction writer; the notepad lets me keep my anonymity.

I also like playing with different pen types and different colors of ink. Granted, this may be a con rather than a pro. It can be a real distraction: "I can't possibly write during lunch, because I left the pen with the purple ink at home, and this blue ink is booooring!"

Cons: Not many, actually. I have a hard copy of all I've written, usually in a nice tidy notebook I can reference for years to come. Nothing can happen to that copy unless it gets torched or flooded, and both seem pretty unlikely. One con is that I have about a bazillion stockpiled notebooks and way more ink than I'll ever use, and this causes guilt. Every so often I frantically write by hand for a few weeks just in order to kill off some of that paper that's staring at me reproachfully from several shelves throughout the house.

It's also slower than other methods. I *have* finished handwritten NaNoWriMos, so there's no doubt in my mind that one can produce a great deal of text by hand. But it's not the easiest method. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, except for quantity over quality word races....

The biggest con, true for all straight-to-paper writing methods, is that I can't move words around or stick in a paragraph if I forgot one, at least not without lots of arrows and crossing out of words. This does mean, however, that I can't waste time with moving a sentence, moving it back, taking it out, wishing afterward that I remembered the exact phrase 'cause I need it now, etc., etc. I can always rearrange things when entering them onto the computer.

The typewriter:

Pros: It's the most enjoyable method of writing from a sensory standpoint. I know that sounds really weird, but other lovers of typewriters will understand. It's the sound, the smell, the feel of the keys under your fingers. Writing with a pen has some of the same aspects, of course: I love the feel of a good fountain pen and the way the ink flows, the smell of ballpoint ink and the way the pages turn puffy and curl up as you write on them. But typewriters still have an edge. Typewritten pages are also generally more legible: some pages may be more typo-laden than others, but it's still uniform printed text, unaffected by mood or tiredness like handwriting can be.

Cons: portability! My favorite typewriters are the two standards, and they're not moving from one room to another, let alone to a write-in or coffee house. Another big one for me is the difficulty of keeping typed pages organized. This is as the forefront of my mind right now, because I'm working yet again on a story from a few years ago. Last time I worked on it, I was just getting into the typers, and I wrote up a few chapters on the SM9. I didn't file those pages carefully, and now they're gone. Thanks to fellow typecaster mpclemens, I've started playing with Circa notebooks, and I think I may move toward getting the whole system and keeping a Circa notebook for all of my writing in the future. The nice thing about 'em, as I see it, is that I could mix my various writing methods in one place, so I could type at home, take the Neo or writing paper if I write at work or a coffee house, and still put all the pages in one big book. Then I could move inactive stories to 3-ring binders when I was done, for future reference.

My prose is typically choppier when I write on the typewriter than when I write by hand. Not sure why this is. I have fewer run-on sentences, which is good...but sometimes my writing gets a bit staccato.

One final con: these are machines, and as such, they are capable of breaking down. A well built Olympia is unlikely to suddenly just stop working, but it could happen, and it's hard to find repair people anymore. It isn't a con I've come across with typewriters that were working when I got them, but I still have a slight misgiving about all things mechanical. At least with typewriters, they don't take any of your hard won text with them if they do develop a hitch.

Alphasmart Neo:

Pros: Lots! It's lightweight and portable, does nothing but write (no distractions, except maybe playing with text size and the word count), has a wonderfully fast keyboard and insane battery life. I haven't yet found reason to doubt the 700 hour figure Alphasmart tosses around. It really does last almost forever. It's also incredibly durable. Dropped it off the table? No big deal...it'll laugh at such treatment. And it holds something like 200 pages of single-spaced text. Try lugging *that* around with you.

I've tucked mine into my bag to take on trips, lugged it on bicycle outings in case I wanted to stop along the way and get in a few words, dragged it to coffee houses and park benches. It really is a marvelous little invention.

Cons: for one, it's odd. It looks, as so many have said, rather like a Speak and Spell in a dark green business suit. People do ask about it. And when they do, although I do have a tendency to go all fan-girl concerning the thing, I also have to confess that its sole purpose is as a writing machine. And, as I've said, I'm rather secretive about the whole writing hobby thing. Also, the very clear screen with its nice big print makes me feel as though everyone is reading over my shoulder. Actually, I feel that way even when writing in notebooks in public, but this definitely compounds that feeling. I have trouble writing on it in public unless and until I get into my writing enough that I'm not as aware of those around me.

It will also bother my wrists after awhile. Considering how many people have Neos and don't have any such difficulties, my guess is that this is as much my fault as its. I think I tend not to hold my hands in the right position when I'm using it, particularly because the flat, fast keyboard lets me get away with being sloppy. I'm going to do some experimentation in that field and see what happens.

A con that also applies to the computer, and any other digital writing device: when I'm handwriting, I will often find a few words or a phrase in a scrapped portion of writing and revise it for use elsewhere. Because those words are on paper, they're immortalized, even if I didn't use them where I intended. On the Neo or the computer, the delete key wipes them out for good. I can't recycle; and honestly, I do recycle a lot, given the opportunity. Even years later. Kind of makes me sad thinking of all the fine words I've vaporized over the years when doing digital writing.

One final con: because I can write so quickly on the Neo -- almost as fast as I can think -- my writing can end up being a lot more wordy and convoluted than it should be.

The computer:

Pros: well, there are computers everywhere. And it means I don't have to transfer the words in any way. I *can* write on the computer. I've finished two NaNoWriMos on the computer. But I don't think it's the best method *for me*, personally. I get bogged down in adjectives, and in playing with word rearranging, even more so than on the Neo. And I am one of the most easily distracted people ever. I am a fantabulous procrastinator. I can sit down at the computer intending to write, but...hey, I'll just play a game of Bookworm first. Oh, and check the NaNoWriMo Technology forum, and see what's going on in the Typewriter Brigade thread, and anything to do with fountain pens. Hey, speaking of the Typewriter Brigade, I wonder what's up on Strikethru and in the rest of the blogsphere...and the next thing I know, it's past bedtime and I've done no writing.

Cons: OK, so I kind of covered that above. Did I mention I'm easily distracted?

Thoughts on the writing process and editing: writing by hand and then typing into the computer likely produces my best writing. I think I've done more of it than most other methods, so this may not be a fair test. I will say this: text I have written by hand usually just needs a little rearranging for clarity, sometimes a bit of fill. It tends to be much less wordy (in a good way), and the dialog works better--it's more natural. I also tend to be more engaged with the story if I hand write. I walk around with my own words echoing in my head, thinking about the next sentence or the next scene. I can picture my words on the paper, and think about how I could rephrase that one sentence on rewrite. I'm inside the words in a way that is much harder to accomplish with other methods.

The typewriter may be the most fun. The Neo is the fastest--I can churn out prodigious quantities of text on that little guy. And the computer is the final editor, in any case. Though, speaking of editing, I should add one more thought: one thing I like about the paper methods is that I have a clearer idea of which portions of the story have been edited and which still need polishing. On the computer, unless I change the font color as I go, it's harder to keep track of which pages have been worked up and corrected. If I at least print and mark up the pages, I have a better idea of where I've been and what I haven't yet touched. It's easier to keep hold of the concept of a draft. I think that's very important in producing quality writing. Without that, it's all too tempting to call a shaggy, sloppy mess of words complete, just because they're all kind of in order in one computer file.

NOTE: I typed most of this on the Neo. I'll blame it for the wordiness. ;-)