The Pique of Efficiency

 
As soon as touch-typing and on-screen, WYSIWYG word processors became common, the peak of writing efficiently was reached. There’s really nowhere else to go. Writing is now as efficient a process of stringing words together as it will ever be.
 
You can fire up your word processor of choice, and type away for as long as you can. We’ll call it 99% efficiency. There’s room for some improvement, but so little that the Law of Diminishing Returns will make the attempt ridiculously expensive. You are now getting the words down just about as fast they will ever be put down.
 
No additional software can make this process more efficient. Not dictation. Not character worksheets nor chapter templates.
 
How you organize your writing projects has an impact, of course, but not as much as you might think/hope. Because no amount of organizing will ever substitute for doing the actual writing. In fact, I would say most creative writing “systems” and specialized software created to “help” you write actually gets in your way. You spend time “researching” and “organizing” the results of research that would be better spent writing.
 
As a modern writer, all you need is a way to put your story into written form–and the willpower to take the time to do that.
 
It’s almost too easy.
 
We’re a tool-using species. We want to use tools. We look for tools–especially specialized tools–that will make everything easier, even when there’s little or no demonstrable benefit to the tools.
 
These days, writers don’t even have to sharpen a pencil or worry about their pen running out of ink. They just have to type and the words appear–and when they type, they no longer have to hit the carriage return and slide the drum back to the first position. The words just wrap. All by themselves. And the ribbon never runs out of ink or needs replacing.
 
The only thing standing between a writer and what he has yet to write is … nothing. A blank space as empty as a fresh piece of white paper, but thinner. Not even a molecule thick.
 
Amazing, isn’t it? A wall of tissue paper would be more substantial than the barrier between us and writing, but that wall of Nothing manages to stop all of us at one time or other. We desperately seek a new tool that will enable us to punch through, at once ignoring all the tools that already exist and how little we need even those tools.
 
We’ve reached the pinnacle of writing efficiency.
 
Enjoy it!
 
-David
 
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