Screenwriting : Writing or typing??? by Howard Johnson

That sounds cool. I write WAY too many typos to work on a typewriter.

I write everything in Final Draft. Would take me too long to decypher my own scribbles on paper.

I think the idea of writing on a typewriter is pretty appealing in a romantic way, but man... I think it would just be too frustrating and counter productive.

let go of the romanticism if you want to be a serious writer.

That's great (and wonderfully old-fashioned if you're writing novels or even stage plays, but for screenwriting... There are novelists and playwrights who always do their first drafts on paper with that thing called a pencil or pen. Then they use the typing process as a form of editing as they put the script into Word or similar. The same process could work for screenwriting.

I use pen and paper for ideas, quips, funny things I hear or see and read, journal writing and poetry! So yeah, I write with my hands. But novels, short stories, screenplays - those go to creative writing software.

Hell, I wrote my first four books longhand on narrow-ruled legal paper with a calligraphy pen. Writers are all weird. :-)

I think only the attic is missing:-). In the end, it does not matter how we do it, as long as we do it and reach our goal. I am a laptop guy, switching between Celtx and Word, as per need. And I plug the music of my choice while writing. It can be Liszt, CSN, Amalia Rodrigues or Muddy waters. Or Monk.

I always insist on carving my scripts into marble. It's the best and only way to properly write if you're serious about screenwriting. Once I've optioned a few tablets my plan is to move back in with my mother and drive around in a beat up old Chevy Nova, that way I'll be able to write like Tarantino.

If you fly to Melbourne, Australia the Old Melbourne Jail rents rooms to writers that sound just like that. No kidding. You can use it for a whole month while you scratch the words of your next prison break movie onto the walls with a rock hammer ;-)

That's a business idea. Open a hotel for screenwriters to write there with offices in different film sets so they can already feel like in their film. Sleeping only in hammocks to save space. :)

The question is which room would you book? I take the one with the ocean view, veranda and the beach down to my feet. :)

Fiona... lol.. nothing to eat, only beer and milk in the fridge or so.

@Elisabeth - they have themed hotels in Japan for amorous couples, why not writers?! I'll book a room right now! Put me down for the Casablanca room.

@Phililip - Here's looking at you, Kid. :))

Phillip, is that the jail near the Docklands stadium? The one that has been converted into a pub/restaurant, I had a drink there just after a game of footy - if it is, book me in!

Writing takes long enough as it is - so I wouldn't want to do it twice. I'm currently transcribing some works that I'd written in a notebook whilst on holiday before I had a netbook I could take with me. It takes quite a while even copy-typing it.

@Chantel- no, the Old Melbourne Gaol (as the Aussies/ Brits spell it) is just north of the central CBD. It hasn't been converted. Personally, I'd prefer a writing room on Alcatraz, the view is better ;-)