Tools of the Trade: Laptop

My notebooks and index cards are essential for me to brainstorm and plan out my stories, but I couldn’t write them down without my laptop computer. The one I’ve been using for the last four years is an iBook G3:

It’s an older model–they stopped making them more than seven years ago–but that serves my purposes better than a flashy new one. Macs last a good long time, so I was able to buy an older used computer for about a third of the price of a new Mac laptop, and it’s still running without a simple problem. Certain functions like internet browsing are rather slow, though, which means that while I can fact-check details now and then as I’m writing, I find the speed too frustrating to be tempted to start browsing instead.

It’s also handy being used to writing on a portable computer, because I can pretty easily get into the writing zone wherever I bring it: public transit, coffee shop, retreat.

But because I do the vast majority of my writing at home, the main reason I write on a laptop is it just feels better than the desktop computer, just like brainstorming feels better to me with pen on paper than fingers on a keyboard. This is one of those inexplicable creative things that I’ve never been able to quite figure out. But something about having the device I’m writing on sitting on my lap, as close as if it were a book, and being away from my desk, makes the words flow more naturally. Maybe I’m able to relax more, because it feels more casual? Hard to say. All I know is, I love my laptop!


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