What is your writing set up?

[olivermoss]

My last post was about how my writing laptop, with it's cool stickers, might be dead. I got that machine partially because small keyboards wreck my wrists. I cannot write in a phone. I sometimes do drafts or notes in paper compositions books. I tried Scrivener when I was doing photography articles for that now-defunct photography magazine, it kept crashing on me. Apparently, it's way better on Mac?

I am trying to think if somehow I could/should rework how I work. I'd like to at least try a writing program, it feels like most productive writers I know use them. I could get Scrivener for my iPad but the keyboard for them as way too small. I could try it again on my current laptop. Or, IDK, do something totally different?

I want to think about options before I spend too much time and possibly money trying to revive my writing machine.

Comments

[casimirian]

When writing professionally, ironically I couldn't afford nice stuff. So I wrote on an old Dell laptop (big keyboard) running Debian. Later, I switched for a Macbook running Scrivener. The Macbook keyboard does not hurt my wrists as much as the Dell.

[olivermoss]

Thanks! I like a low stress keyboard, but switching between Mac and Windows OSes would drive me nuts.

[casimirian]

Ah right. The thing I found closest to Macbook keyboard is on an HP Spectre x360. Word of warning: it gets hot. I bought it for my spouse after she insisted that she wants something like a Mac without being such. Now she wants to retire it for a Mac because "Macs work better." :^)

[olivermoss]

Macs tend to last a lot longer and have fewer problems. The Mac users I know are really happy and are confused at how often us PC users need to replace stuff. I'm must one of those people who deal with badly with UI changes.

[shipperslist]

MacBook Air and Scrivener. But I wrote my first 100K with an iPad and a bluetooth keyboard cover on some weird writing app (bc my iPad couldn’t run Gdocs for some reason) and after that anything feels heavenly. 😁

[olivermoss]

I feel like an iPad keyboard would kill me, sadly. Otherwise that might work really well. I'd DL'd Scrivener on this system and am going to try it for one project and see how it works.

[shipperslist]

Well, I DID write with ipad’s own keyboard for some time before getting the separate keyboard. It was an upgrade, let me tell you. 😁

[mistressofmuses]

I'm afraid I'm going to be in a similar situation soon. I love my laptop, but it's creeping on past a decade old now. It's a Macbook that I inherited after my grandfather passed away, and it's come through a lot... but its one gig of RAM means it's stuck on an OS that's so out of date that even the *first* version of Chrome couldn't run on it, and my old Firefox begs me to update every time I open a browser. I use Word for writing, but the copy on here predates the existence of the docx file type, so it has compatibility issues with just about anything else.

It hasn't croaked yet, but it's going to.

I'm trying to decide between trying to save for a nicer laptop, grabbing something I don't like as well that's more affordable, or going for a tablet/bluetooth keyboard setup.

I wish I had actual advice on a functional setup, but this is more just commiserating. :( I hope you find something that works well for you.

[olivermoss]

That sounds so frustrating! I hope you can get a better set up soon.

I knew keeping my laptop offline was why it kept running perfectly for so long. I feel dumb for thinking I was being overly paranoid and just taking it out of airplane mode.

[octahedrite]

I use Atom on my laptop (Linux) for writing. I've never used Scrivener but I've seen articles on the internet saying Atom can be set up to work like it.

Edited to add: And I use Markdown files for everything, so no compatibility issues. Markdown can be converted to HTML/DOCX if I need it.

[olivermoss]

Thanks!

[stellar_dust]

I'm used to Scrivener on the PC. For a while, I tried to use the iPad version at coffee shops and stuff (with a bluetooth keyboard), and found it so frustrating to use - partly because the features are so slimmed down from the desktop version, partly because it gave me sync issues with Dropbox. Maybe they've improved it since then, though, it's been a few years.

[olivermoss]

I am going to see if Scrivener works well on my main computer. On my last one it just crashed all the time. Part of why I liked my cheapo laptop was that it was light and could go to coffee shops and I could take it on longer trips. But I guess I could go back to paper for that.