Quote:
Originally Posted by Solitaire1
rcentros wrote the following as part of a post:
I strongly agree about the temptation to "fiddle with formatting" as a disadvantage of WYSIWIG word processing. That's the reason that I've purposely limited my formatting options when I do my writing (for example, when I send e-mails I only send plain text so that I concentrate what I'm writing rather than what it looks like). When formatting my documents I take a little time to decide what works for me and then I stick with it unless there's a good reason to change.
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Oh, for heaven's sake. "Fiddle with formatting?" Man, if someone is that easily distracted, they probably haven't got the skills of concentration required to write something in the first place. And, as mentioned often in this line of discussion, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of options for people to use what is relatively plain text. They can write in NoteTab, NotePad, WordPad, RTF, etc. They can write in WORD, and save it as RTF. They could write in Evernote, if it came down to it (or good ol' XYWriter).
What I suspect is far, far more distraction-inducing is the ability of all those over-hyped "writer's programs" (LSB XE, Scrivener, et al) and their ability to create galleries,
surf the net, links to "inspirational material" on websites, etc.
Not being connected to the Net would probably save more wasted hours for an author than worrying about formatting. I must say, if the examples we get in my shop are any indication, worrying about formatting is absolutely, positively the LAST thing that a huge number of writers worry about. What I do see--a lot--are links from words or phrases, chapters, whatever, to myriad websites. A high percentage of those links are directly to pictures, not research material (although we do get that).
{shrug}. As Diap said, to each their own, but I have to agree with him that standing up in the middle of a crowded Internet and yelling about how you still use Wordstar is kinda...well, pitiable. Why even mention it in the first damned place? You're enormously successful, your book(s) is/are runaway hits, you have a huge TV show...man. Does anyone here care how Rowling wrote the first HP? Or how Frank Herbert typed Dune? I don't. I'm leaning toward the idea that this is somehow a preemptive strike on "why my next book is late." I'm not following the books, myself, but I understand that the fans are worried that he'll die before he finishes the series.
Hitch