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Comment by armcat | Hacker News Reader

Game of Thrones author George RR Martin writes all his novels on an old MS-DOS machine, not connected to the internet, and he uses WordStar 4.0. [1]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27407502

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One thing I have noticed about S-tier writers is that most of them have an established routine and stick to it. Why risk breaking something that works? With an established routine, you settle into it, and muscle memory puts you into writing mode. Start mucking with the routine, and that is how you get writer’s block.

You're right, but I feel compelled to point out the irony of this comment being re: GRRM, the world's most famous case of writer's block.

Well writer's block on one specific story. GRRM has written other stuff in the mean time.

Personally i feel for the guy, imagine the whole world insisting you only work on the project you started back in 1991.

Maybe should focus on someone like Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson who actually pump out writing.

Quick search shows George R R Martin wrote 3 to 4 million published words. ASOIAF is ~1.8 million. That's enough to focus on in my opinion.

Honestly, the amount of writing doesn't even seem that useful of a metric. Stephen king only wrote ~3x more than George, and about 6x more than someone like Nabakov (1.5 to 2 million words across two languages). The real takeaway IMO is to just write regardless of the technology you use

While he only did it, to my knowledge, for one book: Stephen King is the only major writer I have heard of to write a full novel with pen and paper (the novel in question was _Dreamcatcher_), which is really interesting to me.

A quick search immediately expands your knowledge (and unfortunately makes Stephen King much less interesting in this regard): Steinbeck went through 300 pencils to write East of Eden. Nabakov wrote all of his novels entirely on index cards. Even JK Rowling apparently wrote the vast majority of harry potter by hand on unlined paper.

And while not a novelist, Tarantino famously writes his screenplays all by hand as well.

Sorry to break it to you, but there are many, many novelists who prefer to write longhand!

Some notable examples I remember include J. R. R. Tolkien, Patrick O'Brian (who wrote all 21 books in the Aubrey-Maturin series by hand, and claimed at one point to write with "ink and quill"), Nabokov, Joyce Carol Oates, Ursula LeGuin, and Truman Capote.

Neal Stephenson has written many novels in longhand, including all of the Baroque Cycle. The picture below shows the pile of paper of the MS, and the three published hardbound books below it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/djwudi/3617012248/

But what does he use to not write them?

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