Writing And Distractions, Advice From Cory Doctorow

Cory has some excellent advice for writers in his Locus article Writing in the Age of Distraction

• Short, regular work schedule
• Leave yourself a rough edge
• Don't research
• Don't be ceremonious
• Kill your word-processor 
• Realtime communications tools are deadly

All of which I agree with, well, I often use Google Docs because I like the online backup, but his points are solid (although can you imagine writing a novel in vi. Arrrggggh. Writing a thesis in emacs was bad enough).

However the last few years most of my writing has been done longhand, with just a pen and a notebook you can turn off the computer completely and write anywhere at all, even standing up in a queue. The only pain with that process is typing it up, but that does act as another draft edit, which can be good.

Written every day this year and it feels very good.