little red hen needs help

Posted by Gary Carson
Feb 1, 2014 at 04:51 PM

I have to point out that your search for better software is diverting you from your main purpose, which is WRITING. If your goal is to be a writer, you need to WRITE, not wander off into the black hole of programming. I used to be a professional programmer and it’s a time-consuming, obsessive kind of occupation in and of itself. Believe me.

The problem, I think, is that you’re fixated on SOFTWARE.

If you’re looking for “a minimalist yet effective thinking/journaling/writing environment [that will] help me organize my thousands of past files and snippets,” there are other solutions that don’t require investing in compilers, learning how to program and researching word processor/outliner/database software design.

Here’s a truly minimalist solution that will probably be rejected out of hand:

Start writing longhand with a fountain pen or something like the Palomino Blackwing 602 pencil. Use 3-ring binders to save/organize your journal entries and miscellaneous notes. Print out everything you have so far. Organize the binders with tabbed dividers and tables of contents. Set up a comfortable writing desk with good lighting and leave the computer TURNED OFF in another room.

I know a suggestion like this will be considered blasphemous and out of place. After all, this is the “outliner SOFTWARE” forum. Still, nothing is more minimalist than writing longhand and there’s nothing like it for focusing your attention on your actual writing. Sometimes the old technology is the best.

I have to warn you, though. Writing longhand can lead to obsessive behavior just as bad as CRIMPing. The Blackwing 602 pencil, for instance, is the center of a cult of writers and artists (do a search, for instance). If you get into writing longhand, you will soon find yourself on a quest to find the perfect fountain pen or pencil, the perfect eraser, the perfect pencil sharpener, the perfect paper, the perfect notebooks and organizers and leather-bound journals, etc. etc. Do a Youtube search on the Midori Traveler’s Notebook, for example, or check out the Fountain Pen Forum.

The search for perfect tools is endless, but eventually it becomes just another distraction.