Live the cliche!

Somewhere between computers becoming widely available and computers becoming easily portable, a lot of people switched over to doing their drafting on a word processor. Which makes sense; it's easier to type fast than to write fast, easier to make changes and save versions, and if your handwriting is a nightmare then it's hard to imagine why you'd want to go back to pen and paper - or pencil and paper, if you've got a thing against ink.

We've still got that fun little cliche image, though: misunderstood writer in the dark corner of the cafe, overpriced drink at their elbow, scribbling at the leather-bound notebook with a real fountain pen. Or typing away at a high-end laptop. 

And I'm ashamed to say that I'm often that cliche. And ashamed to be that cliche, but I haven't found anything that works better.

Pictured: dissertation. Also novel. Also indulgence in irrational craving for blank books.

Computers are beautiful things. I usually draft short stories right into my laptop; with the amount of fact-checking they usually require and the word count limitations they usually have, it just makes sense to pound it all out in word. Novels, on the other hand, are a whole different bag.

When I've got to stick within a word count I like having that little changing number at the bottom of the screen. When I'm going long, it suddenly becomes my enemy. Keeping up momentum is hard enough without having it thrown in my face how far I am from the end every time I sit down to work. And that makes internet procrastination even more irresistible. Which leads to no work getting done. And when you're going on the road for a while, a laptop can get really heavy really fast.

I can't be the only person out there that loves a notebook full of writing.

So I've become the cliche. Technically, I'm not supposed to drink coffee any more, but you don't tell a woman that's run a cafe no more espresso, so I'm only allowed to drink it while I'm working. The notebooks cost pocket change, weigh almost nothing, get taken everywhere and are usually added to in those slack moments when trains are late or professors are late or I'm stuck waiting around. Being a stats junkie, I know that five pages of my writing is about one thousand words, so I can get a word count when I really want, but mostly I just pick up where I left off. And since I can't really go back and waste time tweaking things instead of actually writing, the book gets closer to the end with every Americano I drink. And I'm surprised to find that it is possible to train oneself to be inspired on demand, to produce good work on a schedule. 

Or, as Faulkner so aptly put it, "I only write when I'm inspired. Fortunately I'm inspired at 9 o'clock every morning."