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What do you write on?
I use my gaming rig for now. Eventually I plan on switching to something portable.
Mod
I move around a lot. At work, it's a feast & famine workload so I do some writing on my work PC with MS Word. Then at home I have my desktop PC with Open Office.Keeping my drafts on a jump drive allows me to move from place to place and always have my files with me.
I like having multiple larger flat screens so I can do research on one screen and have my book open on the other.
I have an itty bitty Asus netbook (10" screen) that is lightweight enough to wander around the house with. It's geting on in years so I pulled out my bigger laptop, thinking that might run faster. It does, but apparently I've grown accustomed to my tiny computer because it's a pain to type on.
I started writing on an ipad in the googledocs app with a bluetooth keyboard. It became too challenging the longer my document became and the formatting issues were another nightmare. I finally caved and got a laptop and love it, a MacBook Pro. As for software, Scrivener is awesome. You can get started right away but it takes a while to really learn how to use it.
I use a Chromebook and a desktop computer. The Chromebook is easy to carry around and use in the living room instead of being locked away in the bedroom all day/night. Something that's nice--I use more for editing than writing--I have a remote desktop app on the Chromebook that I can use to access Word (or other programs) when I need it.
I mainly write on a small notebook.It's easy to carry, and we can easily seclude ourselves from all those phones and blue screens and have quiet moments to think.
At home, my office has the minimum requirements: a desktop, a comfortable chair and a coffee pot.When I'm away: a laptop, and I'm willing to compromise and use pretty much any available chair, but if you don't have coffee, I'm going home. :)
I use a MacBook Pro with MS Word. Handy enough to take to wherever around the house is comfortable, or on vacation. I also write & make outline notes longhand if I'm somewhere I don't want to take a laptop (beaches & computers don't really mix).
All my first draft writing is done on spiral notebooks, usually with a black fine point pen. Similarly, I do my editing on printed out copies with a red pen. I'm old school that way.
back in august, i bought this laptop for my daughter for school for $600 on sale at office depot:http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-S...
the hardware specs, wifi (important for internet connectivity; get 802.11ac) and touchscreen are pretty good. haven't had any issues w/it and my daughter likes it. she cruises the web, watches youtube, checks her email, does her homework (openoffice.org), draws w/the touchscreen and stylus on some programming/drawing websites.
here's the review article in PC Magazine that i referred to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,...
I switch between my work desktop (lunchtime), my tablet (mostly for editing rather than composition), and my 17" Dell gaming laptop.I also write on paper for first drafts, usually in nice notebooks with a cartridge pen (it somehow forces me to take the time to keep my writing neat, which I find leads to cleaner prose). The notebooks are usually on pub tables...
my Mac book clone (!!) for my novels. my old lg mach for on the go (it came with polaris 3).I used to have a desktop but they eventually went to PC heaven . most of my PCs these days (since 2005) are for programming now...
I use a laptop with a wifi connection that allows me to go out in the yard under the trees in the good weather and write. I take notes on 8 x 11 pads, file the papers in folders.
ADD meds, crushed and snorted. Oh, wait, you meant computer. Imac.
I use an inexpensive laptop, although I insisted on a model with 'nibs' on the F and J keys to help find the home keys by touch. My wife teased me about it, saying that I could just put a bit of glue on the keys to mark them. I also insisted on a numerical keyboard.My work laptop was a powerful top-of-the-line machine which heated up enough that I needed a pad to keep it off my thighs. My much less powerful personal laptop gets a little warm, but not enough to cause discomfort. Sometimes the economical choice has advantages.
I write primarily on my desktop PC at home, at my desk (the piece of furniture formerly known as the dining room table). I also have a laptop for writing that I bring with me when I'm away from home for more than a few hours, either traveling or just visiting family.
Laptop for me (well, a Notebook but same thing).It's light and portable.
At the end of the day it's personal preference really.
As long as it has Word I'm happy. But careful swapping between devices = different versions of Office may be installed on each!
Also; ALWAYS BACK UP!
There's many cloud type storage vaults these days. I heartily recommend them. That way should some disaster befall your device your precious work is still saved. :-)
I work on yellow legal pads...laptops (I've got a couple of 'em)...and a desktop. It gets a little confusing at times, but it's what works best for me. Also...I don't take the laptops out of the house very much (maybe 20% of the time when I'm writing). I prefer a good ol' pad and pen when I'm in a coffee place or wherever. Luigi's Chinese Delicatessen
Jim wrote: "I work on yellow legal pads...laptops (I've got a couple of 'em)...and a desktop. It gets a little confusing at times, but it's what works best for me. Also...I don't take the laptops out of the ho..."Please refrain from posting a link to your book unless relevant to the thread/post. This can be seen as book whacking.
Thanks
I use a regular desktop PC, but almost anything these days is better than the old typewriter I used in the early days. No more wite-out.
I use a laptop. I bought a new one that was lighter and a bit smaller than my other one. I can write with it anywhere in the house and it's perfect for me.
Christina wrote: "I have an itty bitty Asus netbook (10" screen) that is lightweight enough..."Ditto here. I use an Asus Aspire One. It's fairly old now, but I got it just to write with.
My old laptop was a P.O.S. (HP, crippled by their bloatware and proprietary drivers, and a horribly underpowered power supply that made the thing get so hot that sensitive components would get fried, literally burnt out). I also hated its keyboard. The keys didn't stand up enough and just didn't feel right. It made typing on it a mess (my wife hated it as well).
The Asus has keys that are 85% smaller than full size, but they feel much better. The only issue I had with it was that my palms tended to rest on the touchpad, so I kept accidentally moving the cursor while I typed. I solved that by turning off the touchpad and using a USB mouse. Well, there's one other issue I don't like too: I tend to use the arrow keys a lot. And because the thing's so small, they've mashed the arrow keys around in an odd arrangement with the Page Up and Page Down keys too close to them. I often hit those instead of arrow left or right. That's a pain, but I've gotten used to looking for it.
Pros:
-Lightweight.
-Extremely portable size.
-Keyboard feels good even though the keys are small.
-Decent screen resolution; not great but good enough.
-Battery life is much better than typical laptops. You can easily get 4-6 hours of continuous use out of the standard battery (depending on how much web surfing and video streaming you do). I've purchased a larger battery for mine so I get 7-9 hours of continuous use (and still have my old one for a fall back). Battery charging times are much faster than iPads, too. I do most of my writing in coffee shops so battery life is important. I never bring a power cord with me. Simply don't have to.
-Decent memory and HD size. I've upgraded the RAM to 8GB from the 4GB it came with. HD was like 250 GB, which is more than enough for a non-gaming, non-video storage system.
-VGA port so you can plug it into larger monitors.
Cons:
-Touchpad is in an inconvenient place for my big man hands.
-Arrow keys are too tightly placed.
-Built-in speaker is useless...very low volume and very low bass response.
-Construction is a bit cheap. Careful you don't knock this thing around!
-VGA port does not have screws so heavy monitor cables tend to work their way loose if you're not careful.
-No HDMI support.
-No Bluetooth (doesn't apply to me, but some people might not like that)
-Uses an integrated graphics card so gaming on it is extremely limited (but, then, you shouldn't ought to be doing gaming, should you? Write, dammit!)
Like I said, it's an older model. Newer ones are likely to have larger screens and a few more bells and whistles (but my suffer in battery life and portability, or even keyboard design).
I suggest you go to a retailer and try different keyboards before you buy...Are there still brick and mortar retailers for this stuff?
Mod
Adding onto what Micah says, mine is much smaller in terms of everything, memory especially (I'm maxed out at 2gb), but I recently upgraded to Windows 10 which gave me a bit of a boost. Asus is good for making compact, lightweight machines that are built to last. If you opt for one in the midrange price (roughly $500) you will get years and year of use out of it.Admittedly, they do ad their own bloatware, but I've found it to be less intrusive and easier to remove than most other manufacturers.
Dwayne wrote: "One day I want to use a stone tablet and chisel, like Fred Flintstone did. I liked how the little rocks flew around as he wrote. Until then I will settle for my Lenovo lap top, covered in little st..."That would be fun. I get a a little bit the same feeling when I use my typewriter, it takes some muscle to use it. But mostly I use a Mac laptop.
i miss my old word processors. I had many - a smith corona, a panosonic and my all time fave the brother. that wp1410 was AWESOME. and it was compatible with word perfect (it used 5 but 8 could read it)... ahh good times :3
I usually use my laptop but I do occasionally use my tablet if I'm working on novels on the go!
I totally blew my chance to say crayons.
K.P. wrote: "i miss my old word processors. I had many - a smith corona, a panosonic and my all time fave the brother. that wp1410 was AWESOME. and it was compatible with word perfect (it used 5 but 8 could rea..."I don't miss 'em. But at the time they were pretty cool. First one I used was a Wang word processor that my dad brought home when his office moved to PCs. Did my first attempt at writing on that (a Fantasy taken from a D&D campaign...of course). Reams of green-bar printer paper was spent printing hard copies for revision (and ultimate destruction).
First novel was written on a Mac Classic. 8-bit processor, black and white screen. It worked.
Then I did some writing on a Mac II. Color screen and 16-bit processor. Oooh, double the power.
At work we used to use Word Perfect up to version 6.0 when they added a cheap version of WYSIWYG, though you could do a split screen with half the screen in traditional text-based editing (which is funny, because HTML uses something quite similar to the old text-based editing). Then we moved over to the Office suit Word. I kind of liked the old style text editing.
Not a weird question at all, Kelsey. Most people, self included, like to stay in their comfort zone w/ hardware and software. Especially true when it comes to creative stuff. However, I've been eyeballing some of the newer, low cost tablet and keyboard combinations for take-anywhere, write-anytime portability.
Anyone besides Shari use a tablet for their writing? What kind, how effective?
I was thinking of getting an Irulu hybrid; this has a 10" screen, so is small enough to be portable and also useful as a tablet (for reading in bed or on the train for instance). Trouble is the screen and keyboard might be a bit small for long hours writing.If I do get one, it'll replace an inexpensive Asus notebook. I can endorse Christina's comments about Asus; mine's done five years so far despite being carted around a lot. Also, I recently upgraded to Windows 10 - and yes, the pre-installed bloatware was easier to remove than some.
Mod
However, I've been e..."
My phone is equivelent to an android tablet. Writing it was great, and easy. Though I found my fingers struggling to keep up with my thoughts, because of the touch keyboard. Editing it...let's just say thank god for Google Docs, and kicking my wife off of her computer for awhile.
There are definitely some tablet combos that work, but they'd have to be bigger tablets. Ive got a bluetooth keyboard that my Nexus 7 sits in and it's virtually worthless. Something like a 10" MS Surface tablet with a substantial keyboard would be no different (dimension-wise) from my little Asus, but keep in mind that most tablets are going to come with tablet stats (like mobile processors, limited disk space, most are moving away from sd card expansion in favor of cloud storage, no usb connectors for those with external drives, etc).
In love with my Mac with a huge screen. I drag and drop pictures so easily for blogs and websites.
The relative lack of USB ports is definitely a negative with tablets, and I don't want to be too dependent on the cloud; I don't mind using it to sync my drafts between workstations (I use Dropbox for that), but if you're working somewhere with a dodgy connection, you want your stuff sitting on your disk.
Seriously guys, this has all been super helpful. I actually hit up Best Buy today and checked out their selection. I don't think I'll be doing with a tablet wireless keyboard combo. By the time I'm done buying all the necessary things to make it what I want, it cost more than a basic laptop, though those new 2-in-1 laptops are pretty spiffy. I'd love a desktop, those all-in-one are sweet, but that does not very well for portability.
I think I'm just going to invest in a new, wireless keyboard and hope my baby keeps chugging along until all the Black Friday sales, ha.
April wrote: "I write primarily on my desktop PC at home, at my desk (the piece of furniture formerly known as the dining room table). I also have a laptop for writing that I bring with me when I'm away from hom..."I write on my laptop but I know what you mean about the tabledesk.
I work mostly on my iPad. I have purchase a $7 a month application for Microsoft Word which can be shared with any of my devices, meaning I can even jot down notes or do some quick Track Change edits on my iPhone.I purchased a Bluetooth keyboard and a stand for the iPad and the set up is very light and portable. I actually like being able to set my screen in one place and my keyboard in another. It is also a very low profile set up that I can even set up at a bar and drink and write.
I can save everything to my free iCloud account and transition flawlessly between my iPad and home computer.
I use a Chromebook. I never lose files because it automatically backs up in the Cloud. It has a great wordprocessor that will convert to Word for CreateSpace. My husband poured a hot cup of coffee last month into my book, no warning, accidental. I went to Wmt and bought the Acer 17in screen Chromebook for replacement. Came in, turned it on and charged it, started where I left off. btw, battery life is 8 hours. $200 I can ruin them all day long for this price. Lightweight, dropped several times never hurt it.
Mary wrote: "I use a Chromebook. I never lose files because it automatically backs up in the Cloud. It has a great wordprocessor that will convert to Word for CreateSpace. My husband poured a hot cup of coffee ..."omg so much logic i love it
srsly considering chromebook for my portable now
I've got a Satellite C655. Do I like it... Good thing Walmart has started layaway until December.
Dorsey wrote: "I've got a Satellite C655. Do I like it... Good thing Walmart has started layaway until December."I've got a Satellite S855, hence the reason I started this thread.
Kelsey wrote: "Dorsey wrote: "I've got a Satellite C655. Do I like it... Good thing Walmart has started layaway until December."I've got a Satellite S855, hence the reason I started this thread."
LMBO!Looks like you'll be hitting Walmart too
I use a Satellite C55 myself, and I recently had to replace the keyboard after my dog spilled coffee on it and a bunch of keys stopped working. Writing without an S key is haaaaard.
T.R. wrote: "I use a Satellite C55 myself, and I recently had to replace the keyboard after my dog spilled coffee on it and a bunch of keys stopped working. Writing without an S key is haaaaard."Does your dog like his with sugar and cream? :P
(SOWWY, I just couldn't resist)
T.R. wrote: "I use a Satellite C55 myself, and I recently had to replace the keyboard after my dog spilled coffee on it and a bunch of keys stopped working. Writing without an S key is haaaaard."I'm sure somewhere along the line I've spilled something on my keys, but I can't backspace, hit enter, my A and N keys like to flake out on me and forget about the numbers on the right hand side.
My laptop works just fine, but I have to use a USB keyboard since some keys never work and others constantly go in and out of use. I need to upgrade.
I'm curious to know what you all use for your writing? Laptops, desktops, the 2-in-1 laptops, or even chromebooks?
I'd prefer something light and portable. Desktops are awesome, but it's not something I'll probably invest in, as this will mainly be used just for writing, internet, and music.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!