It’s true that I often double check things as I write. In addition to being a wretched speller, I sometimes doubt my (usually accurate) memory, and do a search on a fact, the name of a place, or the date of a historical incident. I like to get my facts straight in my fiction.
But sometimes I write without WiFi.
Untethered to the Internet, I make frequent spelling errors, mix up the name of a store (or school or building…), and leave some dates and places blank, to be filled in later. The text is nowhere near nailed down, but the story takes shape without the correct bits & pieces. And it often moves along faster and with a natural, fluid motion—writing as swimming—without the chugging stop & start that comes with double checking & correcting.
The rhythm is different. The story is the same.
Most of my WiFi free writing time is also computer free writing; it’s done the old-fashioned way with pen and paper. Most, but not all, because simply being someplace without Wifi or creating an Internet-free zone by switching off access facilitates that fluid, forward motion in fiction.
Just a few weeks ago, I was walking to a restaurant in a neighborhood in Berlin where I’d stayed when I was working on the final draft of the first of my Candy’s Monsters novellas (‘The Mary Shelley Game’). During that trip, I spent most mornings at a particular café with my laptop. I didn’t even think about asking for a WiFi code. This was a few years ago and the vibe in the place was mellow. Parents with babies, people reading newspapers…if it was a “connected” place I missed the signs. What I did see was great coffee and a place where I became a “regular” in no time at all. The morning writing time flew by and the draft was completed!
Periodically, I rediscover this phenomenon and I think I should go WiFi-less more often. Do you ever write in a WiFi free zone?
The roof deck on my building is being renovated, so here’s an old photo taken from my favorite wifi-free writing spot.
Hmm…I used to, back in the early 2000s, but only if I was out somewhere and got a great, or not so great, idea and needed to jot it down.
My problem is not so much the WIFI or lack thereof, but writing longhand. Even writing with my fastest scribble, I can’t keep up with the words and ideas so I never find it liberating. The exact opposite, in fact. Then again, I’ve had a keyboard surgically implanted since 1975 so… 😉
You are very funny!
My handwriting is similar to a secret code——which sometimes confounds even me. BUT, sitting down and sketching out that story, like writing an entire story at the Rijksmuseum on a series of benches, is liberating. Sure, some of my notes were illegible, but the flow or the words really was liberating! As for the speed of writing… I write faster than I read. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. I’m going to experiment with more wifi-free writing time and see what happens.