Slashdot Mirror
Word Processors: One Writer's Retreat
Personally, when the PC revolution got underway, I bought an Apple IIe soon after its introduction. VisiCalc caught my eye. As did Flight Simulator, and going online with a 300-baud modem to local computer bulletin boards. But when it came to writing -- in those days, three drafts of a first novel -- I would not abandon my trusty Hermes portable typewriter. The Apple would not tempt me to some writing Eden. The complexity of computers, I sensed, could only sap the creative process.
This reluctance to mix computers with writing ended abruptly in 1988: I began writing professionally. At different writing jobs, I made use of whatever hardware/software combo the employer had. I fashioned text with PCs, Macs, Sun workstations, and still deemed any personal writing project at night better suited to the beloved Hermes.
I soon realized storing words on electronic media meant the professional wordsmith also did "desktop publishing." I had to worry about font selection, repagination, stylesheets. I wondered when I'd have time to find the right word, the original phrase. Once, while "writing" a software manual, I commented that I'd spent far more time formatting than actually writing. That comment went unanswered. I had a sure sense I needed to make an adjustment to new priorities.
Still, I couldn't shake the idea something was being lost when writers got embroiled in desktop publishing. After five years, I gave up the software manuals, the marketing newsletters, to refocus on personal writing. And for the first time, I thought about moving my writing to that Apple IIe. I hesitated. The monitor was filled with text glowing green on a black background. Would those green emissions overwhelm my inner eye of imagination, unlike a piece of paper sitting in a typewriter? I decided to take the plunge and see.
Maybe I looked sideways when I visualized a story scene. I soon found the Apple IIe gave efficiency analogous to replacing handwriting with typewriting. I only retyped what I needed in successive drafts. Counting words was a snap. And, thankfully, Apple IIe word processing was primitive: more a typewriter with memory, not a desktop publishing system. On balance, a good tool. Before long, I was publishing short stories to the World Wide Web.
But by 1999, living with an Apple IIe was Neanderthal. So despite 15+ years of service, I upgraded to an IBM ThinkPad laptop. I was attracted by portability, the renowned IBM keyboard touch, and a promised multimedia experience of the World Wide Web. As for writing, I would use the full-bodied word processor that came with the ThinkPad. This I accepted as a tradeoff for new PC technology. I gave it a go and lived with a plethora of pull-down menus within pull-down menus. I endured help balloons that appeared without bidding. To keep writing, I resisted becoming expert with all my word processor could do.
This strategy of limits on learning worked but briefly. In months, I was driven to maddening distraction with features I thought I'd accidentally turned on and wouldn't, in a blue moon, set right. Gems like capitalization on autopilot. But what really called for a decision was discovery of quotation marks in the wrong font spread randomly throughout a book-length file (and a pair of left quotation marks at that!).
Moreover, the ThinkPad's operating system, Windows 98, caused me to yearn for the stability of an Apple IIe (if not a Sun workstation). I thought about Linux--the alternative to Windows (unless one buys a new computer and goes Macintosh). But in a serendipitous experiment, I installed the very alternative BeOS on the ThinkPad. As operating systems go, it was a vision of loveliness. Scot Hacker, author of THE BEOS BIBLE, aptly described BeOS as combining "the grace of a Mac and the power of Unix."
The productivity suite I bought for BeOS had a "less is more" flavor and the word processor, in particular, worked well. I wrote a novel without struggle. But too often I tackled the day's writing deciding such issues as a font for the day's draft. The point being, I still had too many choices, compared to my beloved Apple IIe. When I finished the 76,000-word manuscript, I found a disconcerting bug in my otherwise dependable word processor. It repeated words, on occasion, in the text. Admittedly, a dozen "doubles" among tens of thousands of words isn't a big deal, but I wondered if my writing might benefit from even less computer functionality. Did those font choices have a price?
With a new novel to write, the time seemed ripe to switch software. I'd like to say I scoured about for word processors, but I didn't. In my novel, one character would write computer programs. The story question was, What software would he use? It had to be vi. Vi, a Unix editor for plain text files created in 1976 by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. I'd remembered working with a software engineer, who saw no advantage to word processors and dismissed the "prettiness" of desktop publishing. He did everything in vi. Could I write a novel in vi? I decided, Why not?
Vi fast became -- and remains, 100,000 words later -- my writing implement of choice. Most of all, what I like about vi is something that is, well, aesthetic. I like vi's keyboard-only operation. Vi doesn't assault with helpful balloons or racks of toolbar icons. No, vi has a 70s ambience (no mouse, no GUI) that's refreshingly clean. In that sense, vi is a treasured software servant. It works well without showy presence and respectfully stays out of the way.
Sure, vi is only a digitized window on the ThinkPad screen. But, at times, I can almost imagine another sheet of paper filling up with words, not unlike one I rolled into my Hermes typewriter. That's when vi, the minimalist's text editor, lets the words roll freely, as with Hemingway's carpenter pencil, from my fingertips.
Slashdot welcomes readers' original features.
Having started with Wordstar under CP/M on an Apple ][+ in ~1981 or 82, I found Joe to be just what I was looking for. If I want a graphical editor on a Unix-like system, NEdit is the only thing I use (I have it configured to highlight/italicize/colourize keywords and other goo in Cisco PIX config files).
It's graphical, yes, but otherwise quite lightweight and responsive. Of course a good working knowledge of vi is useful as it's pretty much the lowest common denominator on any Unix-like system.
Pico? Begone, infidel!
Trolling is a art,
in a presentation in Australia to the Press Club, Scott McNeally stated: "When the anthropologists look back on the 1980s and 1990s and do the archaeological digs, and get their callipers and brooms and microscopes out, they will blame the massive reduction in productivity during the 1980s and 1990s entirely on Microsoft Office."
While this view maybe considered extreme, the author of the article certainly casts some doubt on the usefulness of complex word processing software. But then, I would not call vi particularly intuitive, but it does cut down on pointless formatting decisions that seem to endlessly arise.
Salon has a pretty good story on XyWrite, the old DOS word processor which is apparently a favorite among a lot of writers. If you want to play around with it, you can build a "XyLite" system with a little work. Also check out the XyWWWeb, an excellent resource for XyWrite related stuff.
Sure that plays well on slashdot, but most writers looking for a typewriter-with-memory would be better served by Notepad or the Mac equivalent. (Does OSX still have TextEdit?)
:)
How many writers know what a regular expression IS, let alone how to search with one?
I know 3 novel writers and many script writers...
and they all completely despise Microsoft Word and Open Office.
some of them even have nasty words to describe both of those products..
basically the jist of all their gripes is the damned "features" you cannot turn off or get in the way, both apps (word and Open Office) are written for childish minds as one of them put it... "any word processor that does anything you did not specifically ask for is a complete piece of crap" (referring to microsoft word.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I met him at a writers conference in the outskirts of Detroit. He presented a small essay about the life of the borgeouis class in late 19th century Germany which many people found fascinating. But what astounded me, and I'm not usually that superficial, is how even though he had a pronounced lisp he was one of the most captivating speakers in the seminar.
I spoke to him the following and explained to him that he was one of my main writing influences. I think I mildly embarassed him since he seemed to lost for words.
Great chap and an excellent writer.
Which is nice.
"I'm told there are better programs [than WordStar], but I'm also told there are better alphabets." --William F. Buckley Jr.
This is a darn old quote; I've no idea what he's running these days.
Personally, I've been a fan of Textpad for years, and it's one of the few pieces of shareware that I actually bought. Light, fast, with incredicle search and replace (even regular expressions). I use it for the few documents I write, and any coding that I might do.
I remain firmly convinced that the combination of a powerful editor and Plain TeX cannot be beat.
The problem, though, is that nowadays publishers more and more demand manuscripts in the form of M$ Word files, which frankly sucks. I am measurably less productive under Word than I am with the combination of (editor + Plain TeX), and I suspect that the same would be true of most authors who are technically competent.
And Jerry Pournelle successfully campaigned to have Microsoft add an option to Word just for him. Which one?
[] Blue background, white text
That option is still there to this day.
Dang, it must be nice to be able to tell Bill Gates what to do once in a while!
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Creative people seem to be among the most resistant to new technologies and/or meduims brought about by technology. The word processor is just one example...but how long did it take photography to be accepted as a fine art? (I'm sure that there are photographers out there right now that will argue that it still hasn't).
A large fraction of those same photographers who are shaking their heads right now -- they refuse to accept digital photography as an artistic medium. Furthermore, much of the other digital "art" mediums have yet to be accepted...what about 3D rendering? This is surely an art form, but is not widely accepted. The demo scene is another that is not embraced by the artsy world.
The point is that the artistic types will tend to cling to their ways...who knows why. But it doesn't seem like, as a group, creative folks tend to enbrace new technology (or in this case a pretty damn old one, like a word processor) I wonder if it's alright to use an electric light Vs. a candle to write?
-Turkey
The last time I stepped into my mom's office (she's a lawyer btw) and still found people there using Wordperfect 5.1/DOS. Whatever works for your purpose, as my mom tells me "It does legal briefs better than anything else that I know how to use, so why change?" Why should authors use the latest version of MS Word or Vi, or Emacs or anything?
Once people have found a comfortable niche in technology, why change until you have better needs?
...in bed
because everybody knows that Power = VI
even freshman Physics students could tell you that...
As a professional writer, I use a lot of different tools. Several of my books I've used MS Word, because the publishers had special templates and macros they used in production that weren't easily ported or usable in other software. (I know, I tried it.) On other stuff (aka 'submitted but not published' works) I've used TextPad, OpenOffice, and Power Writer . TextPad lets me write without getting any programming or interface nonsense in the way; OpenOffice lets me compose more complex documents with footnotes; and Power Writer contains plot, character, and idea databases that help keep all my reference details in one place. All good, all for different reasons. Except Word. I'm not very fond of Word.
Put differently, it all goes back to the aphorism "Perfection is the enemy of (good/progress/etc.)" which is true not just because in trying to make things perfect you often either ruin them or never finish them - it's true because everyone's idea of perfection is different, but most of us can agree on "pretty good".
fencepost
just a little off
I'm of the same school of thought, keep the writing process as simple as possible so as not to occlude the creativity.
To that end, I have an AlphaSmart(.com) - a small portable keyboard, 4 lines of text, capable of storing about 100 pages (12pt. single spaced courier) of information. It runs on 3 AA (LR6) batteries and gets between 500-700 hours (no, no missing decimal points) of active use per set. I honestly haven't changed them in over a year. All active memory too, never worry about saving - it's always there no matter when it's turned off.
It emulates a keyboard when hooked up to a host machine, so open your favorite app and hit "Send" and the text is put in wherever you want it; connects via ADB, PS2, and USB. The only additional feature I've ever wished for was a VI interface on it to speed up some editing proceedures.
I highly recommend any freelance writer, journalist, novelist, student, etc. take a look at the device. They have a newer model running PalmOS for those who might be interested as well (no Linux, yet).
Any spoon would be too big.
Okay, I'm at least a semi-pro writer (one published book, contributing editor for DV Magazine). And I think folks are completely missing how to use Word correctly, and its strengths. I'll be talking about Word for Mac v.X here. Even though Office XP is quite capable, I can't stand the way that they put icons in the left of the menus. Plus there's no better to write than with a laptop in the lap, leaning back in the Aeron, feet on the desk keeping the beat with NoFx.
Back around '89 when I first got Word 4.0 on my Mac SE, I did procrastinate by too much formatting. But I got over it! The key is just to define your standard template. Get that template down, and you're writing object-oriented with styles. Understanding how to use styles and tabs is critical to efficient Word use. Instead of doing it spaghetti-code style with formatting applied directly to units of text, build the right design for each style, and religiously only use styles. If you need to change the style later, it's changed in all instances. Much, much easier.
I NEVER mess with formatting when writing articles anymore, since my standard template has my styles all set up the way I want them.
The real strength of Word is that it lets you deal with your content in a variety of modes. I actually write all my first drafts in Outline mode now, so I can see and tweak the overall structure. This means I don't need to write linearly, like a typewriter is required. I can write what I'm inspired to write that moment, skip back to get terms used later defined in the appropriate place, and that kind of thing. And since the outline headings are styles, formatting concerns just disappear into the background. And because, the structure is always visible, it's much easier to remember what you intended to do, and to pick up on structural errors in my original plan for the piece.
When I'm editing, especially someone else's work, I use Normal mode. Thus I'm not distracted by where page breaks are and that kind of thing. Just the text.
Page Layout mode I use rarely. Word isn't designed for any kind of detailed layout. Still, it's nice to see where the page breaks fall before going out to PDF or anything. But I'll just import into InDesign if I need fine control.
So, big picture:
Use Styles to make structure, not formatting, central.
Use the right viewing mode for the stage of your project.
My video compression blog