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by jillesvangurp
635 days ago
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Neal Stephenson who is quite handy with computers and programming, famously uses pen and paper. Only late in the process does he convert the manuscript to digital. I think he might be using Emacs for that. I think in his case, a big part might be to remove the temptation of procrastination and getting sucked into browsing the internet, tinkering with software, etc. I think the Hollywood cliche is simply based on the fact that type writers were all there was until about 40-50 years ago. And of course not many writers would have immediately adopted word processors when they came into fashion in the eighties and nineties. I remember an elderly math professor in university who still handed in hand written papers to the department secretary. Apparently she was quite handy with latex. That was in the early 2000s. But there is some truth to the notion that reaching flow state is hard work. There's some amusing notes on flow state in Stephenson's REAMDE where he has a character by the nick name of Skeletor who is an extremely prolific fantasy writer. This character is a bit of a jerk because he lets his guests wait until he comes out of flow state, which he conveniently gets into just before they arrive. The reason for his nick name is that he discovered thread mills and transformed from being mortally obese to having a carefully monitored ridiculously low fat percentage. Basically reaching flow state for him means he writes while running at full speed on a thread mill using a keyboard and screen setup that is floating in front of him on some sort of high tech contraption with fans cooling him. |
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