SPOILER WARNING – Despite the title, this isn’t really about how to write.

Bear with me a moment while I explain how I came to the idea for this post. Earlier today, due to some hacking attempts that I’d need a greater knowledge of computers to understand, Twitter and a bunch of other sites were taken off-line. (Twitter being the one I actually use, hence it gets first billing). That and a couple of recent things at work pointed out who reliant we are on computers and other tech. Not a terribly unique notion I’ll grant you, but sometimes you take things so much for granted that they become like background noise.

So what does this have to do with writing? Well, for me it’s more a question of the means you use to write. I remember talking once or twice before about the choice between writing by hand and writing on computer (or tablet, or phone). I don’t think I ever stated a preference for one over the other, I’m not even sure I have a preference. But there are certain benefits (for me) to each.

Writing by hand feels more immediate and often means I get a greater amount of continuous writing done. It also means there is a permanent (barring flood, fire or other misadventure) and tangible copy of the work. On the other hand, it does take up paper.

e-writing (Is that a word? It is now.) means it’s easier to have multiple drafts and back-ups, just in case of the aforesaid misadventure. It’s also a lot easier to track my daily word count on a word.doc than it is on a written page. If you’ve read any of my goal posts, you’ll know this is a fairly common desire for me. I tend to find revising easier.

I might have been a little less than truthful saying I don’t have a preference. What seems to work for me is to do a first draft by hand, then type it up and do the subsequent revisions on the computer. So that’s what I’m tending to do, at least for now.