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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • I journal and take notes regularly by hand and have written novel-length manuscripts in the last couple of years by hand. I prefer using fountain pens or else my hand cramps up. I don’t know if it’s better for my memory, but I prefer it for other reasons.

    My process is to write a first draft by hand to minimize digital distractions. I take my notebook and pen somewhere without internet, and leave my laptop and phone behind. Then, I type it up, and this is a sort of “natural” 2nd draft process, as I obviously make smaller or larger edits as I’m re-reading my own work.

    My mom still has notebooks from when she was in high school. Digital amnesia means I don’t have any of my high school and college homework anymore. My teachers and professors asked me to email stuff in and I didn’t think to keep the files, nor do I have access to any of those computers or computer systems or email accounts anymore.

    When I said that I typed a manuscript up, I mean I type it up on my typewriter. Computers are fine for fun and games but my professional creative and academic writing happens totally offline. I’ll finally type it up into my computer for submission to publishers. Digital media is great because it moves so quickly, but that’s kind of a double edged sword as well, it can also be very ephemeral.

    Digital media is great for moving fast and breaking things, so you can take them apart and fix them again, but that’s not my preferred way to write novels. I developed this system because realized I was putting a lot of effort into managing digital backups of all of my drafts and shit when simple folders and stacks of paper would do fine.








  • there are very few people who would prioritize a replaceable battery over other features.

    I gotta gently push back against this. You may not know them personally, but there are a LOT of people who have gone back to dumbphones over this. IMO, this is a large part of why dumbphone sales are catching up on smartphone sales for the first time in years. I even know some elderly folks who stopped using cell phones entirely when smartphones stopped having replaceable batteries (easier going back to having a landline when one is retired/not raising kids, of course).

    There are very few people who buy the currently existing smartphones who would prioritize this feature, yes – because anyone who does prioritize this feature has been excluded from the entire smartphone market for several years now.