a writerly question

[Guest]

For those of you who write first in notebooks (maybe in snatches or the entire story) before you actually transfer it to the computer, do you keep the notebooks or just save the stories from your hard drive onto disks?

I have gotten to where I write first in the notebook and then transfer. My notebook is getting full (was over half full when I started using it for writing stories), and I can't decide whether or not to keep it or toss it when it's full.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I write in notebooks also, I can't type as fast as I write. I keep the notebooks because I like how the story looks in longhand and I'm a pack rat.

~A~

 

[Guest]

LOL, I can type faster than I write, but sometimes when the muse strikes, my back is hurting, so I write in the notebook and then wait for my back to feel better before I sit at the computer and type it.

I tend to be a pack rat too when it comes to momentos and that kind of thing.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

LOL, I can type faster than I write, but sometimes when the muse strikes, my back is hurting, so I write in the notebook and then wait for my back to feel better before I sit at the computer and type it.

I tend to be a pack rat too when it comes to momentos and that kind of thing.

This may sound strange, but there is just something great about seeing your work in your own handwriting, I guess it's a creative thing.

~A~

 

[NoJo]

This may sound strange, but there is just something great about seeing your work in your own handwriting, I guess it's a creative thing.

~A~

I carry an A5 notebook around everywhere for story ideas. It has the big advantage over my laptop is that prying eyes on the Underground can't make head or tail of my scrawls. Unfortunately, neither can I.

 

[tiger_smurf]

I hate my scribbly handwriting. I jot notes on little peices of paper, in no particualr order, only as a reference for ideas. By translating those notes from paper to pc i eliminate the bad ideas and expand upon the good. I type much faster than i write, and I can't imagine writing the entire story out on paper before typing it, but that's just me.
-ck

 

[pop_54]

It's very rare that I take notes on paper, for the reason that I appear to have lost the ability to write longhand since the computer took over our lives. Like my mate Joe, I can write all manner, but never manage to decipher it later.

 

[NoJo]

What kind of paper do you use, pop?

 

[Boxlicker101]

Sometimes I will get an idea for a story and, if I am away from my computer, I will write it down and save it until later. Once I have transferred it to the computer, I throw away the paper because it serves no purpose anymore, and it was just an idea, not even an outline.

For a long story with a variety of scenes and characters, I write a brief outline. If it is just a stroke story, I don't bother, except in my head, except that if five or more persons are involved, I write down the various sexual combinations. I like to keep all my characters happy.

 

[Sabledrake]

Packrat. I've got game and story notes dating back more than fifteen years. If my house ever catches fire, it will burn merry hell for a surplus of paper kindling.

Sabledrake

 

[flawed_ethics]

I'm keeping my notebooks, only because I use them as a journal too. Too many memories to just toss. I'd transfer them to a computer file, but then it would just be a bunch of ones and zeros. I get much more satisfaction turning the pages.

 

[Omni]

Another thought to keeping any written progress of your writing, it is tangible proof that the stories are yours from conception, if you ever want to or have need to prove it.



Omni

 

[snooper]

Another thought to keeping any written progress of your writing, it is tangible proof that the stories are yours from conception, if you ever want to or have need to prove it.

This is true. Also when you are dead and have become famous* your children can sell them to an American University Library for a large fortune.

*For authors it usually happens in that order.

 

[Belegon]

I have notes on paper and full poems but very few to no full stories. Poems usually spring out in a very short space of time and I rarely feel I've improved upon them by going back later. Stories and letters I feel more like I have to craft. The last poem I wrote was one handed on the 805 North freeway between El Cajon Blvd. and the 52. Not that much distance for all y'all out-of -towners...

 

[flawed_ethics]

This is true. Also when you are dead and have become famous* your children can sell them to an American University Library for a large fortune.

*For authors it usually happens in that order.

Speaking of which, I recall hearing a long while back (maybe seven years ago?) that some early scribbles from the infamous shut-in, J.D. Salinger, were being sold off or distributed. Probably an urban ledgend, but now I'm all curious as to what that fetched, if it were true.

 

[Bizkit_Writer]

I either write it in a notebook or onto the computer itself and I sometimes even write in the notebook then transfer to a computer. course I never keep any of my stuff in the notebooks cuz when I read it back again after I've written it it sucks