Poetry Forum

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On a PC, using a simple plain text editor (i.e. notepad). The big benefit is being able to ceaslessly cut and paste and chop lines around, make lists of words, etc (I used to write on paper and my drafts were a disgraceful mess). I hate MS Word with a passion. Sometimes when I'm trying to look busy I write poems using MS Excel; what would be fun would be to incorporate complex formulae and Excel macros into a piece of verse. But I'm crap with macros.

How about you?

I asked this because I'm sick of PCs and their tendency to dispose of my documents without telling me so I just bought one of these beauties,

Wicked.

When I started off I had an Olympia type writer - very solid but weighed about half a hundred weight. Then I made the jump to light speed and invested in an Amstrad word processor - which was clonky and pants but at least your could edit text which was a revelation.

That, eventually, got binned and the age of the PC dawned.

Still like a pencil and a bit of paper though.

I'm going backwards. New technology holds no intrigue so it shall be ditched. Revolution!

cameron wrote: Still like a pencil and a bit of paper though.

Very true.

Pen and paper, but only to jot down what I've already been reciting in my head for a couple of days, before I forget it. (A bit like Wild Bill W - but not much.)

If my family found me sitting there "composing" ... the shame! (Better than decomposing though, I suppose.)

Furtive Dave

Microsoft Word - then I print it, just in case the thing crashes - which has never happened ye....

I use a notebook to record ideas, lines, first drafts on the run. Then Word to type up. I think it's very good for writing poetry on. Or at any rate, I find it easy to get flowing using it!

For the big efforts (shameless plug for The Corsican Life in the Beginners section), I tend to write a single poem about a character and my relationship to them, then I work out the other titles. Then I work out a story - slowly - and figure out what the titles will each cover. Then I get busy writing, then I post here and elsewhere individual poems for critical help. Then I make changes, cut n paste the work around, decide on an order and deconflict any contradictions, needless repetitions etc. Then I bore the hell out of you lot by posting the entire thing!!

Stu

Don't you find that writing poetry on the computer is kind of inappropriate?! Can you be inspired when sitting in front of the monitor and writing down your thoughts on the keyboard?! And isn't a piece of paper and a pencil/pen way handier to jot down ideas, rhymes, thoughts - and then you can see how they can be connected and put together?!?
Well, I'm surprised people here tend to use computers. Obviously they're useful in many ways but I could never write a whole poem on the PC...

You've got a point. Recently I composed on paper for the first time in years and I found it really useful, being able to draw lines between words and phrases, write in circles etc - stimulates the imagination.

Pad and pen if I'm in bed or out.
Good ol' PC with Open Office when I'm indoors. I like the playability with a PC. very easy to cut and change and rearrange... plus I have shit hand writing.

TDF

Post-it notes aplenty, the back of receipts and sometimes pieces of cardboard. I haven't yet resorted to writing in my own blood, if I find myself short a pen - but it's just a matter of time.

I know what you mean, Oscar. And isn't there a charm about having loads of thoughts, ideas and fragments scribbled on some piece of paper....

I find that I can draw inspiration from a multitude of sources during my days and nights, but sitting in front of a white screen is a great way to concentrate the mind. It's a bit like Scaramanga's giant laser gun in the Bond film.

Stuart

stuartryder wrote:It's a bit like Scaramanga's giant laser gun in the Bond film.

You suggesting poetry always aims for the nuts, but inevitibly misses the mark?

I have to have my PC, my spell-checker and my grammar check, they write the poems all I do is beat on the keys and they put the hen scratching together –hu! Maybe I shouldn’t have told you this???

Horribly.

I love these little insights into people's lives
I write either in purple or turquoise ink with a fountain pen, occasionally a fibre tip (i love the sound they make) if I'm writing poetry or free writing, then type it up, print and re edit in ink again, type up, print out, edit in ink, ad infinitum. I find printing it out makes it look different, makes it easier to be objective when editing.
Sharra
xx

I spend around an hour flexing my fingers, a good two and a half hours looking for a biro that works then I like to use a notepad to jot down a basic structure to the idea that I'm working on. When it's about right, I type it into Word, fiddle around a bit more, then post it, read the post and correct the spelling errors.

Usually I will write the first stanza relatively quickly, then it all slows right down, with many rewrites of each stanza as it goes along. I can't write the whole thing then edit it.

Anyone who has read any of my poetry (if I can call it that) may have noticed that I'm a little excessive with adjectives - I know I'm doing it, appreciate that less is more, but just cannot easily relinquish the little buggers - it's a fault within my large expansive passionate strong weak creative mindless character.

Cheers
Smiffey

most happily, if a poem, with a stabilo bionic 0.5mm and on plain A4 paper. It has a nice consistency but without the somewhat refined aura of a pen so lets me write happily on a bus, bar or my living room. I must say for a poem my favourite tools of writing are these two as it has the tactile delicacy that the computer screen lacks.

However and whenever I can, on bits of scrap paper, in conferences, in the middle of the night, while driving or walking (I have to memorise it and write it down later, like David). Then I type it up and think about it again. Sometimes I just manage words and phrases and then come back to it weeks or months later and see where it's going... Poems and bits of poems are lying around everywhere in my piles of paper.
Helenx