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Comment: Re:Article or Ad? (Score 1) 391

by ch-dickinson (#33853122) Attached to: Word Processors &mdash; One Writer's Further Retreat
Yes, a reader could see it that way. But that's selective & away from the overall point of my post. I had, with ed, an individual approach to writing a novel draft in ~72 days. So the question for the slashdot reader is simply: Fine, but is what he writes dreck? The link to cetus-editions was only to give, gratis (free download), the slashdot reader a chance to decide if I write fiction well or not.

Comment: Re:i remember your post! (Score 1) 391

by ch-dickinson (#33847436) Attached to: Word Processors &mdash; One Writer's Further Retreat
Thanks! I wouldn't suggest another writer out of a 1,000 would try my approach. But the idea that there is a balance point of diminishing utility once a writer goes to personal computers & increasingly full-featured software environment is for me something to think about. As I mentioned in a reply to another post Jonathan Franzen has pretty much stripped his Dell laptop bare for similar reasons -- get rid of the distractions!

Comment: Re:Next step? (Score 1) 391

by ch-dickinson (#33847326) Attached to: Word Processors &mdash; One Writer's Further Retreat
My experience with ed is that for producing a text file, it has the brutal efficiency of a one-way thumb screw. When writing a novel draft, there is no point in even checking the spelling of a word if that keeps one from getting down the immediacy of the story. BTW, Ray Bradbury originally suggested 1,000 words a day. He suggested quantity first and quality will follow. I think that is true of much human endeavor.

Comment: Re:Ok...But let's not blame the mouse. (Score 1) 391

by ch-dickinson (#33847272) Attached to: Word Processors &mdash; One Writer's Further Retreat
I'd reply by asserting all writers have to reach their own accomodation with personal computers as tools for their work. I think I have reasons for my choice/exploration & think it's not yearning for romantic authenticity, but freedom from distraction. Time magazine recently said this about Jonathan Franzen's use of a Dell laptop. Again, note the individual choices he made. Some insist he is quirky & cranky & worse, but he did get the book done. 'He uses a heavy, obsolete Dell laptop from which he has scoured any trace of hearts and solitaire, down to the level of the operating system. Because Franzen believes you can't write serious fiction on a computer that's connected to the Internet, he not only removed the Dell's wireless card but also permanently blocked its Ethernet port. "What you have to do," he explains, "is you plug in an Ethernet cable with superglue, and then you saw off the little head of it."' -- Time

+ - Word Processors: One Writer's Further Retreat 1

Submitted by ch-dickinson
ch-dickinson writes "In 2003, I posted an essay ("Word Processors: One Writer's Retreat") here about my writing experience--professional and personal--that led to a novel draft in vi(m) and I outlined reasons I chose a simple non-WYSIWYG text editor rather than a more full-featured word processor.
        A few novels later, in 2010 now, I decided to try a text editor that predates even vi: ed. I'd run across ed about 20 years ago, working at a software company and vaguely recalled navigation of a text file meant mentally mapping such commands as +3 and -2: ed didn't click with me then.
        But writing a novel draft is mule work, one sentence after another, straight ahead--no navigating the text file. The writer must get the story down and my goal is 1,000 words a day, every day, until I'm done. I have an hour to 90 minutes for this. So when I returned after two decades, I was impressed with how efficiently ed generates plain text files.
        Documentation for ed is available on the Internet, but I found it a great help to take Richard Gauthier's USING THE UNIX SYSTEM (1981) with me when I reported for jury duty in Portland, Oregon. His 30-page discussion of "the editor" is thorough and gave me some sense of the power for this pioneer text editor (cut & pastes, for example).
        As I said, what drives my mule-like early morning routine is word count. The text editor ed has no internal word count tool (through dropping back to the command line gives, of course, wc). What I had to do was quite simple: I converted byte-counts (which ed does with each write to the file) into word equivalents. So if my style of writing runs 5.6 characters per word, then a word goal of 1,000 words is simply 5,600 bytes. Every day, I set my target byte count and once there, I quit.
        In less than three months, I finished a 72,000-word novel draft and give ed credit for not slowing me down. Based on my experience writing novels with plain text editors (vim, geany, and now ed), I understand how few computing resources are needed to take manuscript composition off a typewriter and put it on a personal computer. The advantages of the latter are several, including less retyping, easier revision, and portability among different systems. Whether going from typewriter to personal computer makes for better writing I'll leave to others for comment.
        What doesn't make for better writing is confusing text on demand (that daily word count that grows to a manuscript) with desktop publishing. Desktop publishing makes so many word processors into distracting choice-laden software tools. Obviously, there is a place for a manuscript as pdf file compliant with appropriate Acrobat Distiller settings, but that ends, not begins, the process. I like to think I'm not putting the cart before the horse.
        So why would I recommend ed for a wordsmith? I'd say it comes down to just enough computing resources to do the job. WYSIWYG word processors have a cost and intuitively I think there's cerebral bus contention between flow of words onto the screen and keeping a handle on where the mouse arrow is (among other things).
        But then perhaps I've a "less is more" bias (I have a car with nonpower steering--better road feel; I ride a fixed single-speed bike--ditto). That feeling is the sum of things there (and things left out). When I ride my fixie bike, it seems to know why I ride. Similarly, when I invoke ed, the text editor, it seems to know why I write. An illusion, sure, but also a harmony that goes with being responsible for all of it and staying focussed (without any distracting help balloons!).

One of Charlie Dickinson's novels is available for download at cetus-editons.com"
