They insist they’re just as fast as they would be touch-typing (they’re not)
One can get fast enough using intuitive typing that I would imagine that the main bottleneck would be the need to pause and think of what you’re writing, not the speed of your fingers.
Although it’s frustratingly slow, I seem to have the impression that writing by hand sometimes produces higher quality (unedited) text, because you have more time to think about what you’re writing. Of course, because it still isn’t good enough without the edits you can really only do with a word processor, overall it’s still an inferior choice.
Depends. If I could type as fast as I talk, I would write more and better.
(I write, speak and think pretty much identically. This is necessary to being a certain species of good writer.)
Typing “cat>>tmp.txt” gives me a terminal where I can only add lines, not remove them. This gets me writing a first draft brain-dump pretty efficiently—to the point where I plug in a larger keyboard, because this netbook keyboard is too slow. (Need a Model M.)
I’ve seen many authors say that writing in a medium where you can’t go back and edit as you’re writing gives better results, as you train your brain to get stuff right the first time. Also, typing a second draft completely afresh (rather than word-processing the first draft) gives good results. These are, of course, in the class of techniques for writers to try applying to see what works for them personally.
Back in the olden days, before this “web” rubbish, my friends and I would write multi-page first draft letters to each other, rambling on about whatever rubbish (generally indie music).
One can get fast enough using intuitive typing that I would imagine that the main bottleneck would be the need to pause and think of what you’re writing, not the speed of your fingers.
Although it’s frustratingly slow, I seem to have the impression that writing by hand sometimes produces higher quality (unedited) text, because you have more time to think about what you’re writing. Of course, because it still isn’t good enough without the edits you can really only do with a word processor, overall it’s still an inferior choice.
Depends. If I could type as fast as I talk, I would write more and better.
(I write, speak and think pretty much identically. This is necessary to being a certain species of good writer.)
Typing “cat>>tmp.txt” gives me a terminal where I can only add lines, not remove them. This gets me writing a first draft brain-dump pretty efficiently—to the point where I plug in a larger keyboard, because this netbook keyboard is too slow. (Need a Model M.)
I’ve seen many authors say that writing in a medium where you can’t go back and edit as you’re writing gives better results, as you train your brain to get stuff right the first time. Also, typing a second draft completely afresh (rather than word-processing the first draft) gives good results. These are, of course, in the class of techniques for writers to try applying to see what works for them personally.
Back in the olden days, before this “web” rubbish, my friends and I would write multi-page first draft letters to each other, rambling on about whatever rubbish (generally indie music).
Anyone who doesn’t touch-type: If you don’t need to type faster, don’t learn to touch-type to type faster. Just learn it.
Why?
To free your eyes so that they can “hold on to” and follow your ideas.
ETA: for this reason I also use texmacs instead of latex.