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Writing or typing

by Jeff Phelps on September 22nd, 2016

Thoughts from American journalist, essayist and environmentlist Rebecca Solnit on lithub :  ‘Remember that writing is not typing.

Thinking, researching, contemplating, outlining, composing in your head and in sketches, maybe some typing, with revisions as you go, and then more revisions, deletions, emendations, additions, reflections, setting aside and returning afresh, because a good writer is always a good editor of his or her own work.’

I found that helpful. Typing is one of many processes – not the final one, as it was when the typewriter was king, when the writer unrolled another page of neatly typed manuscript and sat back in the chair. It’s OK not to compose on the computer, but to use whatever method works best for you.

The typed page has a terrible propensity for looking finished which, I suppose, is its purpose. Writing is not typing –  typing is not writing either.

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