Are you completely paperless?

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

A lot of established authors swear by sticking to pen and paper for notes. Some even still write their drafts by hand. I was skeptical because my day-job involves a lot of digital note taking and that works fine.

Last week, I bought a little notebook and have been loving it! I’ve got sections for general observations, possible hooks for stories, physical attributes of people, knowledge and potential characters. It’s a bucket full of lego bricks and I’ve been so much more creative since using it to record things.

Now, I’m considering starting my first drafts (or at least outlines) on paper.

For me, writing has been about building skills that can serve me beyond the writing itself. This is definitely something I can take back to 'work' and it gets me thinking in new ways.

What about you? Are you completely paperless or do you sometimes pick up a pen?

 

[lovecraft68]

I have a notebook on my desk I jot ideas down or if I'm in the middle of a story and realize I forgot something, rather than go back at the moment and ruin the flow I take a sec and write down things like "Don't forget to mention the perfume" or "Change hair color" etc...

 

[HeyAll]

All digital. Can't leave any evidence behind.

 

[astushkin]

My handwritten notes for my last story were a huge pile of loose papers. Trying to be more organized now.

My scribblings about characters are in a blank book. My scene outline is in a Word document. My research notes (story has a historical setting, obsessed with getting the details correct) are in another word document for text citations and a PowerPoint for images and screenshots (pictures of historical interior decor, apparel, locations, random 19th-century gadgetry). In addition, I have a whole folder of bookmarked sites.

I still like using paper for jotting down ideas, circling things, drawing arrows. But I’m a nerd --- love the research part of my writing and have kind of a paper fetish.

 

[KeithD]

I'm almost completely paperless in my writing. My handwriting, never great, is now indecipherable even to me because I have essential tremors. The exception is that when I'm researching a story, I jot down personal, place, and organizational names I'm going to use. Even then sometimes I can't read what I wrote.

 

[AlinaX]

Although I have notebooks still, I very rarely make notes these days. Google Docs is just too useful.

 

[NotWise]

My writing, both fiction and non-fiction, is paperless. I keep notebooks around for short notes, math, reminders, shopping lists, etc.

Part of the reason is that I often can't read my own writing more than a few hours after I've written it -- unless it's printed, which is slow.

Ah, age.

 

[_Lynn_]

I'm almost completely paperless in my writing. My handwriting, never great, is now indecipherable even to me because I have essential tremors. The exception is that when I'm researching a story, I jot down personal, place, and organizational names I'm going to use. Even then sometimes I can't read what I wrote.

Ditto here.

 

[jaF0]

I scribble a few notes to post around the house for things i need to remember. About the only thing I write for public is checks for the few merchants that don't take plastic. I scribble those so bad that bank has mis-read and mis-debited at least one.

My hands just don't work that way any more.

 

[Tye_Ohm]

I couldn't live without a pen and paper. If anything I'd rather use them. However, it does mean an awful lot of rummaging through a lot of wasted trees which I also couldn't live without.

 

[oggbashan]

I write on the screen. I edit on a large typeface printout.

Very occasionally I write a few story notes in a reporter's notebook, but those notes are typed into a Word document within hours.

 

[rescatooor]

Eh, if it's a good idea I suppose writing it down would help. Issue is that I get most of my ideas at 2 am at night while lying in the bed. But the good ones stick, the bad ones get forgotten. If I really want to start writing down a story idea, might as well walk up to the computer and get typing.

 

[gordo12]

A lot of established authors swear by sticking to pen and paper for notes. Some even still write their drafts by hand. I was skeptical because my day-job involves a lot of digital note taking and that works fine.

Last week, I bought a little notebook and have been loving it! I’ve got sections for general observations, possible hooks for stories, physical attributes of people, knowledge and potential characters. It’s a bucket full of lego bricks and I’ve been so much more creative since using it to record things.

Now, I’m considering starting my first drafts (or at least outlines) on paper.

For me, writing has been about building skills that can serve me beyond the writing itself. This is definitely something I can take back to 'work' and it gets me thinking in new ways.

What about you? Are you completely paperless or do you sometimes pick up a pen?

Paperless. Notepad is my friend. After close to 35 years on computers and computerized typewriters, my writing is utterly illegible. Even I have trouble translating it after I write something.

 

[gordo12]

Have to admit my handwriting sucks. I blame it on the fact I had a cast on my arm when I was learning to write, but really, I just like writing fast and illegibly.

Most of my physical writing is in a dream journal I keep by my bed, which suffers from my not wearing my glasses upon waking up, being half-awake at best and having piss-poor handwriting, lol. Sometimes my husband can interpret, sometimes I only write it to keep the dream fresh in my mind until I can get to my computer to type it up legibly.

If I have to write something down I print it. Life has come a full circle and I'm back in Gr1

 

[jaF0]

Hey, I gotta wipe with something.

 

[yowser]

Two parts that aren't paperless for me, and likely never will be.

A small breast-pocket notebook for ideas wherever I am (waiting for a bus, out on a trot, under trees). I go deviceless into the world and the writing down itself (often abbreviated and as others have said, in impossibly illegible handwriting) is valuable. Not even a good paleographer would ever be able to decipher it all.

Somewhere along the line, I have to print out a story and edit the paper copy with a pen. Usually just the penultimate draft, but sometimes more often with a complicated or oddly developing plot. If I didn't do that, the end result would be a mess.

 

[comegently]

I have long abandoned paper for as many purposes as possible. I no longer bother with paper receipts for things like coffee or even smaller restaurant bills (=checks). It's all in the phone payment app.
I have not bought a newspaper for years.
I find it far easier to write in Word than on paper, because the structure is easier to see and I can assemble my writing in any way I like. My only concession is that after all the other proofreads I create one printed copy. The reformatting and media change often reveals subtle things I have overlooked.

 

[SamScribble]

One-hundred-percent electronic.

The only time that I put pen to paper these days is in the kitchen - when I add something to 'the shopping list'. And then I often struggle to read what I have written. An old friend asked me the other day if I might have Parkinson's. I suppose it's a possibility.

 

[DCO_65]

Ollie won a toilet brush as a door prize at the Church Pancake Supper. The next week the pastor saw him and asked him how he liked it.

"It's okay Pastor," Ollie said, "but I think I'll just stick with paper."

 

[gordo12]

Hey, I gotta wipe with something.

Your windows must sparkle!

 

[TadOverdon]

All-electronic.

 

[Athalia]

In my erotica, and in almost all of my personal correspondence, I'm totally paperless. In my job on the editorial staff of a news service, most of it is now paperless but there are a few people I work with that insist on hard copy, so the printer stays pretty busy.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Writing is completely digital.

My drawings, completely paper.

 

[Haulover]

Completely paperless.

Can't beat the convenience of having everything in 1 place, and taking it with me wherever I go - just as long as I have my laptop.

I wrote 3 mainstream novels (published in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and sold in a few other places) in the '90s. I hand-wrote each manuscript, then typed it in and printed it, my editor and I edited it on paper, I'd enter the corrections, re-print, re-edit ... etc. Very slow and long-winded. But back then I wasn't as comfortable thinking while typing as I am now.

 

[jsmiam]

Paperless. If an idea hits me in the middle of the night I message it to myself via my secret-folder app, in effect achieving the same thing as jotting it down.