Desk, chair — & laptop!

Over the past six months, I’ve been sharing a few artefacts* of the writing life with you. You can find the previous entries under “About Writing” — just look below “Categories” in the far right-hand side bar. 🙂

As you’ve guessed from the title, in this edition the spotlight’s on the (probably already outmoded!) laptop.

I do have a desktop machine but the laptop is my primary writing tool, mainly because it can travel with me wherever I go so no writing opportunities are missed. High five to not missing writing opportunities. 😉

The great advantage the laptop (or any PC for that matter) has over pen and paper and the notebook (click on the links for earlier entries) is that you can retain innumerable versions and options for the story in a readily accessible and reusable format. And…um…I do—a great many versions in some cases!

Open for some serious worldbuilding business…

Now,  although it can be rather disheartening at times to have quite so many versions and options (because it would be quite awesomely wonderful if the writing process could be linear, direct, and certain the first time!) it is also incredibly useful when I get to a point where I think, “Oh, that scene I wrote two years ago and loved but didn’t seem right at the time—it really would be perfect right here, right now…”

Lo! With the trusty laptop at hand, the required text can indeed be deployed right here and right now, which is fabulous.

Is there any downside to the laptop (and PC technology generally)? Well, yes, there is. It’s just too darned easy to go back and re-edit, which is great when you’re editing, but when you’re creating it can become a safety blanket that soon becomes counterproductive, because in the creative phase it’s best to keep the story moving forward.

*Artefact: "a functional or decorative human-made object."