Pen and Computer
You can write only with your brain; but whether to pro-cess your thoughts with a computer or pen and paper
is your ?rst practical choice as a writer. I suppose it
is still possible to ignore the computer and write just
with pencil and paper. A surprising number of writers,
including Martin Amis, A. S. Byatt, Ted Hughes, John
Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, Susan Sontag, John Updike,
and Edmund White prefer longhand for serious writing.
But the advantages of the computer are so great that it
seems almost irresponsible to pass them up. A computer
greatly accelerates editing procedures, allowing you to
take a piece through far more drafts than you could
otherwise. On-screen correction is so easy that people of
all ages ?nd the process relaxing, even pleasurable. Com-
puters give a sense of freedom from lasting error that no
one who has experienced it will want to give up. I shall
never forget the excitement I felt, twenty-?ve years ago,
when I discovered that words had ceased to be indelible.
So in this book I shall take for granted that you will prob-
ably use a computer for some, if not all, the processes of
writing.
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