Discovery Writing, Handwriting, Pens, Tablets and “AI”
As a retired person I tend to dabble at whatever piques my interest. With writing, it was Nanowrimo. Alas, that yearly event is no more, so I have looked around for a different challenge.
“Discovery Writing” looks interesting:
Discovery writing, also known as "pantsing," is a writing approach where authors create their stories without a detailed outline, allowing the plot and characters to develop organically as they write. This method emphasizes the joy of exploration and creativity, as writers often discover the story alongside their readers.
Then I read “Writing Into the Dark” by Dean Wesley Smith. Fascinating.
Taken with the attitude of personal enjoyment, no pressure of deadlines or need to be publishable, it actually sounds fun. In the past I’ve always assumed it was true that writers love to have written something, but hate the process of writing (I can’t recall the writer who said that. Robert Silverberg?). Yet this approach might change that paradigm.
How about upping the ante and doing it in cursive longhand? I wondered. That’s how Neil Gaimon writes his first drafts, with fountain pen on paper. A little investigation shows that he’s not alone. So it’s not a totally loony concept. Let’s see if it’s feasible with digital pen, tablet, and conversion to text—typing it up from the handwriting would be a pain and I can’t afford to hire a typist like those successful authors do.
With my Kindle Scribe it went like this (after many snags and head scratching episodes).
And the emailed conversion output on my iPad mini, opened in Ulysses without any edits, was:
Not bad! I have found that it understands paragraphs just fine if I use medium rule spacing and a one-line gap between them. I tried narrow rule and it often didn’t create paragraphs even with the blank line between. I think it needs a certain amount of space. It doesn’t “see” the rule lines.
Problems with this conversion: bad spacing with the quotation marks, and this always happens no matter how close you put the marks to the text. Also a lower case “n” starting the last paragraph obviously because I didn’t make it large enough. I’ll have to learn these quirks and adjust my writing accordingly. And lastly, no curly quotes. Fixing those led to an unexpected panacea for all the errors.
I ended up trying the new-ish Apple Intelligence Writing Tools thingie:
A simple thing to ask. I could use WordService on my Mac to do Smart Quotes, but wanted to see how much I can do on my iPad mini.
Whoa, surprise! It fixed absolutely everything and did so without adding anything I didn’t want. Shocking! I allowed it to replace…
… And voilà, it’s a perfect conversion from my messy cursive to Ulysses project—easy and it doesn’t even take very long. I think I have the method for my discovery writing madness.
Before this I tried Nebo on my iPad mini. Technically, it’s a better way to go about this productivity-wise, with the live conversion preview and the ability to edit as you go. I have mostly discarded that route because a) EMR on e-ink tablet is approximately fifteen billion times as pleasant and legible as Apple Pencil on iPad (for writing; it’s fine for art); b) the very useful live conversion and ability to edit as I go is freaking distracting as heck no! and c) my iPad mini is uncomfortably small for this particular endeavor. I’d want to get an iPad Air, costing $$money$$ I really shouldn’t be spending on a whimsical adventure like this.
Even so, I have a “paperlike” magnetic screen protector on its way to see if I can improve the Apple Pencil’s feel and performance. It’s only $15 and, being magnetic, easy to put on and take off without removing my current tempered glass matte protector. If I really like it, I can get the non-magnetic permanent one to replace the glass protector.
I’m not optimistic about an iPad option, so I also ordered a Lamy AL Star EMR pen and a ten-pack of Wacom felt nibs which more than one reviewer stated worked marvelously in the Lamy. I've always wanted to try the Lamy EMR and this gives me an excuse. No big deal if I don’t like it. My Zbook x2 pen remains wonderful to use, in general, but it’s designed for art, not specifically for writing as the Lamy is. I’m hoping for more writing comfort and control during long writing sessions.
As always, we’ll see how it goes.
Follow-up: in a surprise turnaround, the winner combo for me is the Kindle Scribe plus Lamy AL-Star EMR pen with Wacom One Pen 2023 Edition Elastomer Nibs These nibs fall between standard and felt, friction-wise. Very nice on the textured Scribe surface. Felt is still better on smooth glass for my taste.
This experiment has unfortunately been on hiatus due to right index finger extensor tendinitis. Pretty sure the injury was instigated by twisting that finger while lifting a window open. That was before I created this topic—at the time I thought it was a temporary ouchie—and most any kind of that finger usage brings back the pain, from mild to excruciating. Included writing with a pen, naturally. So I need to rest it until healed. Which, I’ve read, can take weeks to months.
Makes me tempted to get an extreme ergo keyboard like the Svalboard—almost no finger movement necessary. I ordered a sample key switch cluster to try it out. Super expensive so not something to jump into without thought. But this pain has persisted over a month already… might be necessary if this persists.