Here to Create

The Capture Tools series is geared primarily toward writers, but anyone who needs to write will find it useful.

My previous post on Capture Tools addressed what I write on. This post discusses what I use to write.

I felt relieved and a little self-righteous when Natalie Goldberg, in Writing Down the Bones, discusses the importance of a good pen. True, she says the notebook doesn’t matter, but at least I got one thing right. I used to get nervous at the idea of having to make an ugly scribble when I just wanted to erase something but only had a pen. So for a long time, I tried to use a pencil to freewrite. But it was light-colored and rubbed even lighter far too easily. And it wasn’t smooth enough; there was too much friction. For a while I carried a Pen Again, which was extremely comfortable once I got used to it. But the ink, like the pencil, didn’t flow smoothly enough. My favorite pen is a Pilot G2, preferably in blue. The ink flows smoothly and doesn’t smear; the pen fits comfortably in my hand. I keep buying more and more of these pens, so I’ll have one wherever I might need one around the house.

I’ve developed specific writing habits for different kinds of material. When I’m stuck and have no idea what comes next, I need the tactile quality of pen rolling across paper. When I have an outline, at least a mental one, and things are going well, I can write just as well on a computer. Happily, I’ve been able to type most of the five chapters of my current novel.

The more writing I do on a computer, the more I realize I’m just as picky about my keyboard as I am about my pens. I wrote before in One Simple Productivity Secret about how writing on a laptop not connected to the internet dramatically improved my ability to concentrate. I also discovered that I much preferred the sensitivity of the laptop’s keyboard. I usually use an ergonomic keyboard, but the one connected to my main computer had sticky keys. My concentration would be shattered every few seconds as I pounded on the shift key to get it to work. After using the laptop for a while, I decided to find an ergonomic keyboard that had the responsiveness of a laptop’s keyboard. After a little research, I purchased this keyboard. It’s everything I dreamed it could be. Although I still have the potential distraction of the internet when I use my main computer, I can concentrate much better without the frustration of the sticky keyboard.

This concludes my series on Capture Tools for writing, though I may add to it in the future if I find any other tools that become essentials. It may seem that all this dithering around looking for the right writing tools is completely unnecessary. After all, most of the great writers of the past managed just fine without Circa products or ergonomic keyboards. But I feel that a little bit of fussing is justified if it helps me maintain my sometimes fragile concentration. After all, the great writers of the past didn’t have to deal with the constant distraction of the internet. That’s what I tell myself anyway. Regardless, my productivity has certainly surged since I started using these tools. That’s enough justification for me.