A Twitter conversation the other day reminded me of something I read a while back about how writers should learn to type faster, because then they’ll be able to write faster.
I can’t speak for that person, but in my case, my brain is the limiting factor, not my fingers. I can type garbage quite fast but that’s not all that helpful in the end.
I switched to Dvorak in 2007. Back then, my Qwerty typing speed was in the 70-80 wpm range, with a fair amount of errors (and when I take typing tests, I can’t stop myself from hitting backspace and fixing all my mistakes). A few months after the switch, I was in the 50-55 wpm range in Dvorak.
Four years later, I’m up to the mid-60s–still not back to my Qwerty days (but my hands don’t hurt, so I don’t care).
And these days I’m bi-keyboardal. Apple still hasn’t made an iOS Dvorak keyboard, which means all the writing I do on my iPad is Qwerty. It’s not touch typing or I suspect my hands would get very confused. Having to look at the letters makes it easier to remember Qwerty. When I use a fullsize external Qwerty keyboard I get very confused.
I know I could get a hardware Dvorak keyboard, but it’d be an extra thing to haul around.
I couldn’t handle being bi-keyboardal – it killed my typing speed which hurt me at work. I had to choose one, and since I need to type on my bosses’ computers at various ponts, I had to go back to Qwerty. I do miss Dvorak and would love to go back if the swapping mechanism was easier.
As for the typing making a better writer? I think it removes an obstacle between the creative self and the manual effort of writing it down. I have a connection between my brain and my hands that allows me to immerse myself in a story and type like mad. Once the story is rolling, I can follow the thought/plan and bang it out in little time, which results in my inner editor being shoved to the back of my brain, thereby allowing me to complete more pieces.
At least, that’s how it works for me.
I just realized there’s a typo in the title of this post. I think I’ll leave it.
If I had to use a “real” Qwerty keyboard, it would be a lot harder for me to switch back and forth. Something about it being both small and touch-screen makes my brain treat it differently.
I can see typing well and quickly removing an obstacle. That’s the same idea that leads me to leave out most punctuation (esp. quote marks) when the story’s going well. It makes the typing faster and easier.