Getting it down - in whatever state

[Phyrebrat]

Hello,

I'm not entirely sure if this is news to anyone, or even helpful, but it occured to me today as I was hammering away on my WIP that when I get into the flow, I ignore all typos and errors and splurge onto the page. Then, when I come home I usually spellcheck and correct what I wrote on the way to work.

I thought I'd share a screen cap of exactly how insane my splurge is and wonder if anyone else write like this to keep the left/right brain separated when in the creative phase.

Spoiler: a lot of red squiggles...

 

[Mouse]

Blimey, DivBruh, I've never seen so many squiggles in my life. Do you touch type? I do fiddle as I go, but I touch type so don't usually get the squiggle madness.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Blimey, DivBruh, I've never seen so many squiggles in my life. Do you touch type? I do fiddle as I go, but I touch type so don't usually get the squiggle madness.

Me too. Touch typing rocks. Frees the creative brain

 

[Biskit]

Not sure I get as many typos but I generally ignore until later. Running spellcheck etc is often something I deal with when I'm too tired to do anything creative.
I sort of touch-type, but the desktop (what I'm in at the moment) is a very different keyboard to the laptop where I'm forever hitting capslock when I want shift.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Having been an engineer, I can't continue typing if there is a typo. I will stop and look up the spelling on a word, but that is just me.

 

[msstice]

@Phyrebrat I believe that is the way. This may be relevant (Brandon S' lecture)

I've found that the important thing indeed is what everyone else says: It's important to finish the work, to get that first pass down on paper. I've been trying that, it goes against my instincts, but with practice I'm getting there.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I've never seen so many squiggles in my life.

Wait, not even the red ones on yer nose? (Actually, I used a section that was relatively squiggle-free )

I touch type on the ol' keyboard, but when I commute for work, I take my iPad as a couple years ago Scrivener released an iOS version so I have my project synced between comps and tablet. The problem with typing on an iPad (for me, that is) is there's no feedback the way there is on a keyboard, and sometimes there's a latency issue from the moment you press the key, to the moment it appears.

Also I'm a furiously fast typer and brilliant.

 

[Astro Pen]

Oh, I never touch the keyboard until the sentence is perfectly formed.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

I'm terrible at getting down a first draft, but I'm trying to overcome my perfectionism. It's like I'm embarrassed to show myself my own first draft, so I wait till each sentence is 2nd draft material in my head before I put it on the page. Not an efficient way to work.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I constantly re-read, correct typos and edit as I go along, and perform an edit on my previous writing session before starting a new one. It make for a very slow process, but means the final edits are usually a breeze.

A page like @Phryrebrat's would be way too distracting with all those red dots and would destroy my concentration. I make enough mistakes without typos...

 

[JS Wiig]

I guess I’m a cross between @Phyrebrat and @Wayne Mack:

Also an engineer, I can’t leave a misspelled word, or improper capitalization or punctuation. But I am perfectly fine writing what I know is crap at the time, with the full intention of throwing it aside later. I also do no re-reading or editing in the first draft, just get it down on paper. “Fix it in post” as they say...

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

I constantly re-read, correct typos and edit as I go along, and perform an edit on my previous writing session before starting a new one. It make for a very slow process, but means the final edits are usually a breeze.

A page like @Phryrebrat's would be way too distracting with all those red dots and would destroy my concentration. I make enough mistakes without typos...

Same.

 

[Droflet]

First draughts are troublesome. But before I attack the keyboard I make sure I know what I want to say. My current book was planned from the beginning but of course open to changes. EG. Maybe I won't kill off that character. As much as I agree with getting the story on the screen I can't help myself and must call in spellcheck as the urge takes me. Newbies, don't do it the way I do it.

 

[Ursa major]

But before I attack the keyboard I make sure I know what I want to say.

Are you sure you're not cheating by doing that...?

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Computer programmer here. In an IDE*, red lines always mean some sort of error, so have to be corrected as soon as possible. It would appear I have taken that same discipline into my writing.




* Integrated Development Environment

 

[Droflet]

Are you saying there's something wrong with cheating, Ursa?

 

[Ursa major]

Are you saying there's something wrong with cheating, Ursa?

Try asking that question in the Football (American Football to those across the pond!) thread with "respect" to the New England Cheetahs....

 

[BookAddict]

Correcting as I go kills my creativity. I have read in so many places that it is okay to just let your fingers fly and self-edit later. That makes for tons of squiggly lines for me too. Ha!

 

[Droflet]

I screwed up. Delete.

 

[sknox]

Just so people don't think it's characteristic of engineers: I'm a historian and I correct mistakes when I see them. Mostly as I type (the Backspace key is well-worn on my keyboards), but I don't catch all of them in process. For me it goes back to one of my professors in grad school. He told us there's no such thing as a typo; there are only mistakes. That made me focus (this was before personal computers, but after the advent of CorrecType) on getting the writing as correct as possible first time through.

As noted by JSWiig, that's an entirely separate matter from writing well!