George RR Martin: 'Why I still use DOS'

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

You don't know writing techy-boy.-) How can you feel what you're writing without the friction of pen on paper?

Humph! Calls himself a writer when his DOSsy computer does all the work for him. -grumble-grumble- Wears funny hats, too.

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

And suspenders!!

Don't forget the bowtie...

[geormes]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I knew a guy who was convinced that buying a better guitar made him a better guitarist.

Happens all the time. Usually a new guitar causes one to spend more time with the guitar.

[Timoleon]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I gave up in the break between books four and five. It was already starting to go off the rails at that point; regardless of the ridiculous wait that followed. Series came down with a terminal case of the Sprawls.

Ditto.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I gave up in the break between books four and five. It was already starting to go off the rails at that point; regardless of the ridiculous wait that followed. Series came down with a terminal case of the Sprawls.

[carpetmojo]

Job done then ............

[DiapDealer]

I chose to break off the relationship before there were any hard feelings.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I chose to break off the relationship before there were any hard feelings.

I put it on pause.

I'll read five through the end if/when the series is completed.

[Ken Maltby]

I liked Jim Butcher's "Codex Alera" more anyway.

Luck;
Ken

[Waylander]

To Ken; Here, Here! A much better and more satisfying series.

[jshoughton]

Originally Posted by Graham

Someone should give GRRM Scrivener for Christmas.

Or maybe for a birthday.

Or July 4th. Whichever comes first.

Graham

Definitely! Now there's a great piece of software!

[WillAdams]

Does Scrivener have an option to support Wordstar key commands? If it does, I'm interested.

If not, what extant software does? Other candidates include:

http://joe-editor.sourceforge.net/
http://www.editpadpro.com/manual/pre...dwordstar.html

[Jessica Lares]

Psh. I bought TakeNote the other day for my Paperwhite 2. It doesn't do spellcheck either, and I figured that I would take it one step further and use Markdown syntax (You can't see it live, but once you get into it, you kinda know what everything means). Edit it anywhere, proofread it anywhere, and add the plugin to Scrivener, WordPress, etc.

Make yourself a shortcut to where the files are located, copy them as you go, add the txt/md/fountain extensions, and then do whatever you need to do.

Boom!

I at least hope he has a nice flatscreen for using DOS. I could never go back to a CRT. I'd take the black borders over the glare any day.

[Penforhire]

I read all of this series and am waiting not-so-patiently for the next one. Write fat man! Write before you die!

I am more curious about how he organizes his notes than what software he uses to write. He has a monstrous amount of backstory to keep in order. I imagine there is as much or more than the words in the books.

There are plenty of stripped down "no distraction" writing programs available.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

I read all of this series and am waiting not-so-patiently for the next one. Write fat man! Write before you die!

I am more curious about how he organizes his notes than what software he uses to write. He has a monstrous amount of backstory to keep in order. I imagine there is as much or more than the words in the books.

There are plenty of stripped down "no distraction" writing programs available.

This reminds me of how Paul Levitz, long-time writer of "Legion Of Super-Heroes," used to keep track of his long-running (as in years-long) plot lines for the series. He'd write each one on a card, and advance each one a small amount in some issues. It allowed him to keep four or five subplots going on at the same time. Some where so subtle that you might not notice them at first (such as the "Shrinking Violet Imposter" subplot).

On the subject of "no distraction" word processors, Jarte (a small RTF-based word processor) has a minimal layout mode. In that mode the screen only contains a writing area (that is zoomable to the entire screen) and one menu bar at the top of the screen. While it does have some automatic features, they can be turned off with a click.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JAcheson

As for DOS vs. Windows, a lot of people who prefer DOS do so because it is pure text, and they are not distracted into fiddling around with formatting instead of concentrating on writing.

Yep. And WordStar is a great word processor -- although I liked WordStar 5.5 instead of 4.0. I did more writing with WordStar than I've ever done since. It was not just the screen, it was the keystrokes (which are still hard-wired into my fingers). It kept your fingers on the Home Keys, instead of having to search for the Function Keys, etc. I still run WordStar (now 7) in DosBox under Linux sometimes -- but I don't write much anymore.

I also use the Joe variant -- Jstar for most of my editing in Linux.

Martin is not alone in using WordStar in the SF writing world -- Robert J. Sawyer and several others also use WordStar.

http://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm