From Quills to Scrivener

Last week came the sad - though not unexpected - news that Britain has made its last typewriter. There is not enough demand in the UK for typewriters any more and so the manufacturers have shut down their factory, donating their last product to the Science Museum in London.

I had a bit of a panic when I heard this news. I don't have a typewriter yet - save one for me! Surely every writer should have a typewriter? I remember typing up a story on my mum's typewriter when I was about eight years old and I loved the mechanical feel of it. It felt industrious somehow. But nowadays the biggest demand for typewriters is probably on film and television sets.

Of course there are reasons why we don't use typewriters anymore. Computers are superior in almost every way, except in romance. There's no romance in a laptop. Word processors are not the stuff sepia-toned memories are made of. I'd love to say that I write my first drafts with a feather quill on cream paper, and then type in up on a 1930s typewriter in a hotel room overlooking the sea. But I don't. I'm very dull. Unromantic or not, I produce all my work - from first draft to final masterpiece (hmmmm) - on Microsoft Word (Georgia 12 point, double-spaced with 3cm margins, if you're interested).

Working out the plot structure of The Art of Letting Go

I don't however, plan my writing on a computer. I always plan by hand. I have a plethora of notebooks for various types of writing, and I always print out first drafts to edit by hand too. My current novel (now called The Art of Letting Go) has its own notebook and my next novel is just waiting to be summoned into possibility inside another.

But there are even more modern ways to get writing. Many people have recommended the software Scrivener. Scrivener is "a word processor and project management tool that stays with you from the first, unformed idea all the way through to final draft". I haven't used it, but I think the idea is that instead of having piles of notes on characters and plot and those sorts of things, you have it all in one place, complete with colour-coding and all sorts of other clever tools. It sounds perfect. But I'd hate it. I've heard brilliant stuff about it. But it's not for me.

My tool-kit for writing The Art of Letting Go

I like to have my walls and desk covered in paper. I love flicking through a notebook to find a note I scribbled when inspiration struck in the middle of making dinner. I enjoy having a massive theasuarus on my desk even though it's just as easy to look at an online version. Some writers always write their first draft by hand to make the process more thoughtful, others use software like Scrivener because they love the clean order of their physical workspace when everything exists in a virtual one instead. The trick is finding what works for you and not allowing yourself to feel inferior because it's not what Hemmingway or Dickens did.

Are you a pen and paper kind of person or a Scrivener scribbler? If you do use Scrivener - or any other specialist software - I'd love to hear what you think of it and whether you'd recommend it to other writers.