Technology, It's Here to Stay

To the left is an actual picture of my keyboard. Well, one on my keyboards. Yes, it's quite dusty. I am known to be rough of keyboards and mice. I've done a lot of writing on that particular keyboard. However, I'm finding that, in the last couple months, I've been branching out leaving my trusty keyboard to sit and collect dust.

As posted about previously, I've purchased several nifty gadgets recently. Most of them were acquired under the guise of helping my writing. And they have. I've never been so productive.

If I have an idea, I jot it down immediately so I don't forget. Don't have pencil and paper? That's okay, let me pull out my netbook and/or smartphone. In fact, I started this post on my smartphone and am now finishing it on a netbook.

So, with technology so prevalent and easy to use, I wondered if there were writers who still used the reliable old pen and paper. Even a huge techno-geek like myself has used pen and paper at times, but, admittedly, I haven't in several months. I have too many alternatives and I can type faster than I can hand write.

Which brings me to another point. When I hand write, I can't keep up with the thoughts in my head and I end up missing quite a lot and only writing the highlights. If I type out my thoughts, I get more recorded. True, not every thought I have is a good one and perhaps it's a good thing that they don't all get recorded, but how am I going to know unless I get everything down so I can look at it later?

With technology, also comes distraction. I can check websites, forums, chats, ebooks, blogs, etc. all day long and not get a thing done, if I'm not careful. A whole new set of organizational skills and self-control are needed. At this very moment, I have a netbook, a phone, an mp3 player and a television in front of me and most of them running at the same time, all individually capable of distracting me for several hours. With all of them in front of me at the same time, there's a whole new level of distraction. There's distractions from my distractions.

So maybe pen, paper and a quiet room isn't so bad after all? Or maybe it's just up to every individual's tastes and preferences.

I tend to work better with technology, even with all the distractions. That doesn't mean that others won't work better with the old non-computerized standbys.

How do you work best?