I would like to tell you that I write on an old black typewriter with only a desk and some books. Maybe the desk is an antique door that I have converted for the task and there is no clutter. Only a clean space for the mind. I would like to tell you that I look out a picturesque window with a view of the mountains or the ocean. But I don’t.
I look at a screen very similar to the one you are most likely reading this on. Maybe bigger if your on your smartphone right now. And the space around me does have books, but it also has hard drives and cables and cords and more clutter than it should but that doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t trade the tools I have at my disposal for all of the ribbons in the world.
Last week I was writing the post about imagination and I used a quote from Mark Twain. I knew it came from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court…. but I am also aware of my lack of talent in spelling.
So I just switched over to a browser and started typing in the Google search bar and after I got to “a conn” I saw “a connecticut yankee” and I arrowed down twice and then hit the right arrow and the spacebar and it auto completed the rest of the title and then I hit select all and then copy and then I pasted that into my post. It was easier than typing the title and correcting the spelling. I counted keystrokes just to see. Had I typed it out it would have taken 43 keystrokes without spellcheck. The way I did it took 13. And that includes switching programs.
Now I don’t know if one way is better or not. But I do know that I am so used to doing things this way that I didn’t even think about it. That’s how much my process has changed based on the tools I have available.