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Comment by seattle_spring | Hacker News Reader

Question for folks that write on a regular basis: what medium do you use to write? Paper and pen? Laptop? Tablet? Something else?

I find pros and cons to all of the above, and ultimately have a hard time getting into the flow. I used to write all of the time on a laptop before I started working in software.

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I use Scrivener. It's basically a "pretty good writer's IDE". Yes I could make something more sophisticated and tuned for my workflow hacking up emacs or vim, and it's not Jet-Brains level of polish, but after trying both routes I realized for writing, Good Enough is just fine. And the advantages of Scrivener outweigh the lack of vim bindings... :-) Put it in full screen, and everything you need to write is there, with all of the other distractions from your general OS hidden out of the way. Decent outlining and note taking tools, plays well with git, multiple ways of looking at the same data, and Composer Mode, where your page becomes a typewriter. It's pretty slick and fairly priced.

I will also outline on paper and index cards. Index cards are great for outlining and can be spread around the desk easily.

I've used Scrivener for book writing where I've found it really useful for when I'm still fiddling with organization and overall balance between chapters. The downside is that between collaborators and editors, I need to move everything over to another format at some point. But I still find it useful in the early draft stage if I'm mostly working on my own.

I write a bit. I use my laptop. I change my methods frequently (text files, notion, html, markdown, wiki, wordpress).

Lately I've slacked a bit and so a couple days ago I decided to simply write letters to myself. This is very, very easy. I don't have to worry about how good it is, I'm only writing to myself. I also put a note in my calendar to go back and read my letters about once a month.

Sometimes I'll expand letters into blog posts or small books. I've published several small books in the past, the most recent being my introduction to computer programming for absolute beginners, which is called "Splash of Code by Joel Dare".

Either laptop of desktop depending on whether I need a lot of reference material open.

I wrote with a typewriter for years before computers and I can't really handwrite for an extended period any longer (or read what I've written half the time).

long hand on plain paper - then dictation onto the computer. it's a nice system combining the sound feel, including a first edit as you change the medium.

The best tool is the one you actually use.

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