Thoughts about writing on a smartphone?

[Bramandin]

I'd rather write out longhand if I don't have access to a computer. My reason is that I once wrote a fanfiction on a palm pilot and when I transferred it to a proper computer, I hated the paragraph-length but was unable to do anything about it. This may be less of an issue if someone is writing things to be read on a smartphone. Writing longhand, I did do a fanfiction where it was directly-transposed and hated it less, (I didn't find anything to really edit,) but I still preferred to ignore the longhand version and simply type a new version without really looking at it.

Does anyone have any different takes about it?

 

[paranoid marvin]

If I wake in the night with an idea, or I have one whilst out walking/at work, I will put some notes on my mobile (send an email to myself). If I don't you can guarantee that by the morning it'll have gone completely out of my head. But if I have the choice between writing on a computer or a phone? It's always PC.

I wonder how many of us still write it out on paper or even use a typewriter? Every time I think of someone type writing it always takes me back to Misery...

 

[KiraAnn]

I don't always hit the right keys. If I was to use something like that, it would be a tablet, or a laptop.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

I go for writing out on paper, but mostly lose it so the laptop is better. Google docs on a mobile is good, but the slow rate of tapping can ruin the 'flow' I reckon. There again Behrouz Boochani wrote No Friends but The Mountain using text messages so anything is possible.
I wouldn't be sure if you're not just editing your longhand stuff with the typing though; it's gotta be still fresh in your head and the pen/ pencil/ paper exercise woulda given it a good form. *far from an expert
**had to edit this for typos which reinforces the one astrix qualifier

 

[sknox]

Typing on anything but a keyboard is a nightmare. Punctuating dialog is a nightmare. Handling diacriticals is a nightmare. Formatting--specifically, for my own writing, italics--is a nightmare. I have to turn autocomplete off to avoid still more nightmares.

There's a reason why messages on Twitter etc are highly abbreviated, badly formatted, and wretchedly punctuated.

My first drafts, notes, ideas, etc all go into a notebook. I always have exactly one and only one notebook going at a time. It goes with me pretty much everywhere, along with pens that always write (not ballpoint!). At home, I use a fountain pen because it's easy on my arthritic fingers, and I'm a sucker for colors.

The key, though, is to settle on a routine and keep to it. I fiddled for years before I settled on mine. Oh, and I use notebooks that have the date begun and date finished on the front. And I type everything from the notebook somewhere between daily and weekly, depending on how much I've written. The notebook might contain actual scenes, but often also contains notes. There's a lot of me writing out plot and character ideas, arguing with myself. The contents might go into two or three or five different files. The notebook is more like stream of consciousness that gets sorted when I type it up.

 

[Bramandin]

Typing on anything but a keyboard is a nightmare. Punctuating dialog is a nightmare. Handling diacriticals is a nightmare. Formatting--specifically, for my own writing, italics--is a nightmare. I have to turn autocomplete off to avoid still more nightmares.

Ah, I was using the message-ease keyboard which I think made the dialog tags easy to get to and the palm didn't have auto-correct. Also the site I was uploading to allowed bold and italic, but I think they had to be added during the final in-form formatting while submitting because it came through as plain-text.

But yeah I agree that it's a PITA to use anything but a keyboard. (Never tried speech-to-text.)

Have you ever tried a Pilot Varsity for your portable pen?

 

[sknox]

Speech to text has similar problems. It doesn't punctuate dialog properly. It hasn't a clue that I've switched from one language to another. And it is even less successful with all the weird fantasy names. I found that fixing the text afterwards took as long or longer than composing the initial draft.