Would this resource interest you?

[Mark Robson]

I have been approached by a Legal Secretary who has always wanted to type for an author. I now do all my own typing, but wondered if this service would be of use to any others here. My informant tells me that she is extremely fast and accurate. If interested, then please drop me a PM or an email and I'll make the introductions.

Having handwritten my first four books before switching to typing directly onto a laptop, I also wondered how many people still write by hand?

 

[dwndrgn]

Neil Gaiman writes his longhand still I believe - even though he is pretty well versed in technogadgetry.

 

[MJRevell]

I think JK Rowling writes long hand too.

 

[Azure]

Yes she does, as her coments about looking for notebooks caused fans to organise a mass notebook drive. Apparently she has quite a lot of notebooks now!

 

[Patrick Mahon]

Having handwritten my first four books before switching to typing directly onto a laptop, I also wondered how many people still write by hand?

Interesting question, Mark - I'd also be interested to know how other people on Chronicles write their material. For what it's worth, I write in long hand, and then with anything longer than really short stories, I type it up onto the PC later on. But this is purely due to practicalities - I do much of my writing at lunchtimes and on train journeys to meetings, because that's when I'm free of interruptions and so can think. But I don't have a laptop to take with me. I've got a PC at home but, like many others here I'm sure, I've got small kids, and find it almost impossible to do anything new while they're still up.

How do others manage?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I have a vast collection of notebooks, but they're for notes and research. I'll write down bits and pieces of scenes on anything handy, if an idea occurs to me when I can't get to the computer, but never more than a page or so that way.

But I did write my first three books on a typewriter rather than a computer. Which was messy, and if I could have afforded, back then, to hire a professional typist to make a fair copy, that would have been very nice.

I managed to do quite a lot of writing while Megan and Miles were still very small (in fact, Miles was born while I was working on the Green Lion books, which made Megan 2, Daisy 6, and Gwyneth 8). I think stay-at-home parents learn how to stop what they are doing, pay attention to something else, and then take up where they left off. But it takes a while to develop that skill, and you don't get the chance if you're away most of the day, and only sit down to write at the end of the day when you're worn out anyway.