
First, the short answer: I use Word for writing, and Excel for keeping track of my daily word count.
Now, the long answer: I use Everything.
I write using everything and anything I can get my hands on.
I email scenes to myself from bed at night. (I used to email scenes to myself when I had an office job too.)
I text sentences to myself while running errands or waiting for the train.
I write down ideas on napkins, and flyers, and even sugar packets when in restaurants.
I once wrote an entire short story on the back of discarded photocopying paper.
When I’m travelling and have to put my phone in “airplane mode” I use Docs to Go which is a wonderful app.
When I was a teenager, and only allowed to use the family computer for one hour a day, I wrote all my first drafts in notebooks.
Once when my hand was strained and in a brace, I dictated scenes into an old microcassette recorder.
When the power is out, I write with a pen and paper. (Even when it’s too dark to see the actual words I’m writing, and have a hard time deciphering them later.)
Right now, I have a MacAir that I love. But when I need to, I switch to an ancient netbook which can’t run music, or games, or the internet. (I also write with ancient netbook at places like the beach, because it doesn’t matter as much if it gets stolen.)
Scraps of my books fly around between my phone and my laptop, in a jumble of Word, emails, texts and instant messages, until I manage to sit down and coalese them all.
I use everything.
If you want to write, write. Don’t wait for the right computer, the right software, the right pen, the right desk, the right chair, the right atmosphere, or the right moment. Don’t wait for your computer to get fixed, the lights to come on again, or your body to leave the supermarket. All those things are fantastic. But they are no substitute for simply having the words in your head and the impulse to share them.
Writing is like exercise. The right gym. The right shoes. The right equipment. The right weather. All of those can make a huge difference.
But at the end of the day, all you need is your own two feet to run.
What is the most unusual thing YOU have ever used to write?