Effective Quoting: Boost Your Writing Credibility

Much great writing is born of frustration.

In this case, my frustration as an editor stemmed from a recurring issue in several recent manuscripts: the inclusion of unattributed or questionable quotations that sent me down wild-goose-chase tangents, trying to trace their origins. These weren’t cases of plagiarism, just well-meaning writers (often subject-matter experts with limited writing experience) misusing quotes or sourcing them carelessly.

To be clear, I don’t blame the writers. Part of my job is to help writers polish their work and clear up such issues. But it did get me thinking: a little guidance on how to quote well, not to mention how to verify a quote’s origin, saves editors time and writers money. More importantly, it will strengthen the credibility of the writing itself.

This blog series is designed to be that missing resource: a practical guide for writers, editors, and publishers alike on how to use quotations with integrity, clarity, and impact.

Thus, in the first post, I shared (disguised) real-world examples of misused or misattributed quotes I’ve encountered in editing, along with how I tracked down their true origins.

In the second post, I explored why these kinds of quote problems matter. I explain how they can subtly (or not so subtly) erode a writer’s authority and credibility. I also discussed the risks of sourcing quotations through Google or AI tools without verifying their accuracy or context.

Now, it’s time to focus on the positive side of the equation:

How can you quote effectively, ethically, and accurately, in ways that actually enhance your writing?

Here are some essential tips.

Tip One: Let Your Voice Lead

This is the primary rule: your writing is yours; your writing should sound like you. No matter how brilliant a quote may be, it should never overshadow your own voice or take center stage.

Use quotations strategically. They should support your voice, not hijack it. The reader should always hear your voice loudest and clearest.

Tip Two: Quote What You Know

You’ve probably heard the classic writing advice: write what you know. A natural corollary for nonfiction and content writing is: quote what you know.

That means: don’t just Google “quotes about leadership” or ask an AI tool to “find a quote on resilience.” Instead, mine your own research. As you read, take notes, and explore sources, pay attention to the lines that resonate with you. Highlight them, save them, and record the full citation details right away. You should be able to show readers exactly where that quote comes from and how it supports your arguments and ideas.

Quoting from your own reading and research ensures several things:

  • You’re using material you’re actually familiar with.
  • You’re less likely to misquote or misattribute.
  • The quote will be relevant to your argument, not just thematically adjacent.
  • You’ll avoid pulling quotes out of context, because you know the context.

Bottom line? Use quotes that are grounded in your own understanding and research. This adds credibility, authority, and authenticity to your work.

Tip Three: Quote When The Wording Matters as Much as the Content

When it’ the content of another writer’s work that supports your ideas, it’s usually better to paraphrase rather than quote, precisely because paraphrasing will help ensure that your prose follows the first tip: It maintains your voice as the controlling voice, even as you discuss another person’s ideas.

It’s best to quote, on the other hand, when there’s something important about the specific way in which the other writer expresses the idea. The use of another writer’s words, in their own characteristic style, should contain something that deepens, adds layers, and enhances meaning in ways that wouldn’t be there if you merely paraphrased. You can check this by paraphrasing the idea yourself first: does your paraphrase do the job, or is there something the quote adds that’s not in your paraphrase? If the answer to the latter question is yes, then consider quoting.

Tip Four: Quote to Add Authority

This one’s slightly tricky. In general, quoting the words of a figure your readers will immediately recognize as authoritative can lend weight to your argument or ideas. However, there a couple of potential pitfalls to keep in mind:

  • Don’t quote merely to name-drop. The name of a famous person isn’t going to help you express your ideas if they’re not authoritative in that area. If you’re writing about, say, a political concept, and you quote a celebrity actor who has no expertise in what you’re discussing, the quote can come across as a cheap name-drop rather than something that adds power to your message.
  • Beware of misquotes and misattributions. Think about the Mark Twain quote in my earlier post: if Twain never actually uttered or wrote the phrases you’re quoting, that could undermine rather than enhance a reader’s sense of your authority. Especially if your reader spots or even suspects a misquote, you come across as sloppy rather than authoritative.

Tip Five: Source Everything

Think about what your mom told you as a child: “Don’t pick it up if you don’t know where it’s been.” As I mentioned in a previous post, internet quote sites usually cite a source, but very often misattribute that source. In a future post, I’ll talk more about how to verify quotes and track down sources for potentially dodgy ones. For now, as a general rule of thumb, don’t use a quote unless you’re certain of its provenance and can provide full citation information. If you find a quote you’re thinking of using, be sure to ask some basic questions:

  • If the quote is attributed to a writer, for example, in which of that writer’s publications does the quote appear?
  • What’s the title of the book in which the quote appears? When was it published and by whom? On what page does the quote appear?
  • If the quote’s not from a book, where else could it have come from? A speech the writer gave? A response in an interview? If so, what’s the date of the speech, and can you verify the quote from a transcript or audio/video record? If it’s from an interview, can you verify when the interview took place, when and by whom it was conducted, and verify the publication information from the article in which the interview was published?
  • If the quote isn’t attributed to a person, where did it come from? Is it just a popular aphorism that’s been around forever? What is known about that aphorism’s origins?

Tip Six: Avoid Cliches

I’ve seen manuscripts in which the writer peppered their prose with popular aphorisms and sayings, most of which were only tangentially related to the topic at hand. The quotes wound up detracting from the writer’s clarity and felt “cheap,” as though the writer was little more than a walking cliche factory. While there might be circumstances where a popular aphorism might truly fit the bill (such as the one I just used in the previous point, which intentionally makes use of the aphorism’s popularity to underscore the precise idea the paragraph discusses), ask yourself if there isn’t something better. And if you do use popular sayings, do so as sparingly and strategically as possible. If you use many such quotes, they are more likely to dilute your voice than to enhance it.

Tip Seven: If It’s Worth Quoting, It’s Worth Discussing

Never simply leave a quote hanging by itself, as though its relevance to your ideas is self-evident. Any quote deserves at least a sentence or three about how you’re interpreting it and what it adds to your ideas. Unpack it for your readers so they see its importance for your point as clearly as you do.

Bonus Tip: Get A Second Pair of Eyes

One of the best ways to make sure your quotes are landing the way you mean them to is to get someone else’s eyes on your draft. This doesn’t need to be expensive: a trusted friend who isn’t a writer can still read your work and tell you what they found interesting and where they encountered confusion. Of course, a professional editor is your best bet, as a person who is both highly sensitized to potential points of confusion and knows what to do about them.

That’s it for now! In a future post, I’ll talk more about how to source quotes well and how to verify their authenticity and provenance. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from others in the comments. If you’re a writing or editing professional, what other tips do you wish your clients knew? If you’re a less experienced writer, what questions come to mind?

The Dangers of Using Popular Quotes Unverified

In the first installment of this series, I told the stories of three dodgy quotations I’ve encountered in some of my own editing adventures. In this follow-up post, I’d like to explain more about exactly why those three quotes are problematic and address one of the best ways to avoid such problems in your own writing. If you haven’t had a chance to look at the first post in the series, please do via the above link, since the following will refer to it heavily.

One main issue for the first two quotes is attribution. Both quotes were widely circulated on the internet, but credited to various people. I see these kinds of quotations all the time in my editing work, mainly because they’re the quotes that circulate the most widely over social media and show up the most easily in topical Google searches. More often than not, however, such quotes are very difficult to attribute and document. At the core, this is because most such quotes don’t really have clear “sources” at all–they’re simply popular aphorisms that float around in cyberspace and other domains of popular culture (word of mouth, popular self-help literature, business books, etc.), with different writers giving them different attributions, usually in order to attach them to “famous” names that seem to lend them greater authority: a quote’s going to seem to carry more weight if one attributes it to a well-known writer like Mark Twain rather than simply allowing it to be anonymous. Often, a popular influencer will either make up or perpetuate one such attribution, and then whatever attribution that influencer uses will circulate that much more widely because of that individual’s significant reach.

The Trouble with Poorly-Sourced Quotes

There are a few problems with these kinds of quotations, however.

For one, savvy readers will often be able to recognize the misattributions, which can affect those readers’ sense of the writer’s credibility. Quotes like these can backfire easily, giving readers an impression not of authority, but of laziness, of a writer who wasn’t really doing their homework.

For another, popular aphorisms can thin out your ideas rather than lend them authority. Popular quotations sourced from the internet are often as popular as they are because they are very general, designed to appeal to a wide variety of situations, so they can land as too pithy or cliché, directing emphasis away from your ideas by appealing to broad generalities. And, as in the case of the second example in my previous post, quoting a cartoon character runs the risk of making you sound like a cartoon character. While I don’t think such quotes are verboten as a hard and fast rule, bear in mind that using too many of them will make you sound more like a cliché-generator than someone writing with authority about what they know. So if you use any such quotes, use them sparingly: a little goes a very long way. And (as I’ll cover in more detail later), be sure to do your due diligence as a writer to figure out where the quote really came from. If it’s a popular aphorism that’s variously attributed, it’s usually better to acknowledge that fact than it is to run with an easily-caught misattribution.

The quote in my third example demonstrates another common pitfall of sourcing quotes from topical Google searches: very often, those quotes appear in isolation without any kind of context–and knowing the context can often drastically change a quote’s apparent meaning. In the case of my example, the writer used a partial Biblical quotation which seemed to mean one thing when presented in isolation, but, when read in the context of the broader passage in which it appears, wound up meaning the exact opposite of what it appeared to mean all by itself. Again, since there are plenty of Biblically-literate readers out there, such a mistake can undermine your credibility and garble your meaning.

Avoiding Dodgy Quotes

The first and most important principle in avoiding dodgy quotes is to realize that Google is not necessarily your friend. In fact, as I’ll address in the next post, thinking about just “finding quotes” rather than expressing what you know can be dangerous in itself. Most especially, topical Google searches for things like, say, “quotes about resilience,” can be especially problematic. That will lead you, primarily, to sources like inspirational quote sites, Goodreads, Reddit, and other sources. There are several problems with these:

  1. Such quotes are very frequently misquoted, misattributed, or both.
  2. While the sites will provide a basic (and untrustworthy) attribution, they never tell you where the quote really came from. Even if the attribution line says “Mark Twain,” it won’t tell you which work of Twain’s contains the quote. This can run you into difficulties down the road, partially because it can be quite difficult to verify the quote, and partially because, especially if you’re writing more formal nonfiction prose, finding the right information to include in a citation can become a real headache. Always ask yourself, “Where did this come from?” Don’t just think about names, but about sources–where and when did that writer or speaker say this? What book? What chapter? What page?
  3. As mentioned above, such quotes often appear in isolation, and can mean very different things when set in context. It’s a good idea to actually track down the original quote in the text where it originally appeared so you can check that broader context for yourself. I’ll address how to do this in a future post.
  4. They can make you sound like you’re cobbling together clichés and aphorisms, distracting readers from your real ideas rather than lending those ideas emphasis and authority.

Ultimately, there are simply many better ways to source and employ quotations to maximum effect in your writing. In future posts, I’ll cover exactly what those are.

Things to Come

So, keep an eye on this space! My goal is to create a series of brief posts about quoting well, which I’ll ultimately compile into a single resource.

Upcoming topics will include:

  • Why Quote? The Purpose of Quoting in Nonfiction
  • When to Quote–and When Not To
  • Where To Find Your Best Quotes
  • How to Source Your Quotes Credibly
  • Proper Attribution and Documentation
  • Incorporating Quotes Smoothly
  • How to Track Down Suspicious Quotes
  • Resources for Quoting Well

What other questions about quoting well do you have? If you’re a fellow editor, what other common pitfalls do you often see in your own editing experience? Please leave them in the comments, and I’ll address them in one or more of these upcoming posts.

Unmasking Phantom Quotes: A Guide for Writers and Editors

Part One: A Tale of Phantom Quotes

Meme depicting Abraham Lincoln, with the caption "The problem with quotes found on the internet is that they are often not true."

As an editor, I specialize in nonfiction. I work with many clients who possess great expertise in their fields but who wouldn’t claim to be trained writers, so I tend to spend a lot of time verifying and documenting quotations. Here are just three that I’ve encountered in my editorial adventures lately—three that fall into the category I call “phantom quotations.” Please note that my use of these examples is in no way a criticism of the writers who included them: these quotations, or versions of them, appeared in early drafts and were not ultimately adopted in these forms. The point is not that the writers made mistakes. All writers, even the best ones, make mistakes. The point is that quotes like these are one of the very reasons the best writers always use editors: it’s important to have a second, objective pair of eyes that can spot and troubleshoot issues with quotations that inevitably arise.

Phantom One: Mark Twain the Optimist?

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

In the piece in question, the writer attributed this quote to Mark Twain, but, as an editor with a long background in literary study and some expertise in Twain, the quote just didn’t feel right to me. For one thing, it’s way too optimistic to jibe with Twain’s typically cynical stance toward human nature. So I took the usual first step and Googled the quote to see if I could get a sense of where and when Twain might have uttered or written that sentence. What appeared in my Google search was a very long list of entries, mostly from popular “quotations about everything” sorts of websites, all attributing the quote to Twain. The problem was that not a single one of those hits–not one— mentioned an actual source. By “actual source” here, I mean a concrete reference to a published work of Twain’s in which that sentence can be found, or a speech of his where it was recorded.

While the vast majority of attributions were to Twain, my Google search also revealed a number of other attributions, mentioning a host of other names, most of which I hadn’t heard of.

A search of a digital archive of Twain’s works revealed nothing.

Finally, doing a little more digging, I came to one of the better online resources for all things Twain, the Center for Mark Twain Studies (hosted by experts at Elmira College in New York), and found a fascinating article on this very quote. The writers of that article confirm that this quotation is one of the “most viral” quotes misattributed to Twain they’d ever researched, and they list some of the major sources that helped make the Twain attribution popular, including the epigraph to the 2014 Denzel Washington thriller The Equalizer. The article also mentions a dozen other popular “life coach” authors to whom the quote has been attributed, but locates the “explosion” of the quote’s frequent repetition to a popular 2011 Tweet by comedian Steve Harvey. The article also mentions another useful source for attributing dodgy quotations like this, Garson O’Toole’s Quote Investigator, which finds a likely original source for the quotation in a sermon published in 1973.

The most likely story is that a relatively little-known pastor penned a similar phrase for a 1970 sermon, which was eventually published in 1973. Various other sources must have picked up on the quote and repeated it, and then Harvey’s 2011 Tweet really got the quote circulating on social media, where it was picked up by many more authors and “influencers.” Along the way, someone attached the quote to Twain, and the attribution simply stuck because the attribution to Twain makes the whole quote sound, at least initially, more authoritative.

Phantom Quote Two: Wisdom of the Ages, from A Cartoon Character

A second quote in the same manuscript was similarly problematic. This time, the quote read “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.” The writer attributed this to Family Circle cartoonist Bill Keane. As with any quotation, I wanted to verify and document this, so, once again, I started with the old “Hail Mary” Google search to see what would arise. Again, the attributions were wide and variable, and included Keane, often referenced Eleanor Roosevelt, and even–by far the most popular attribution–the character of “Master Oogway” from the animated movie Kung Fu Panda.

Once again, it was Quote Investigator to the rescue. It found that “The earliest strong match located by QI appeared in a speech delivered at a graduation ceremony in June 1993 at Rutgers Preparatory School in New Jersey. The speaker was a member of the Board of Trustees, but he credited an unnamed journalist.”

The article was tentative about even that attribution.

Here again, we have what’s probably a popular aphorism of dubious or unknown provenance, and one that likely gets attached variably to whatever well-known figures make it seem more authoritative in any given moment.

Phantom Quote Three: Moses Said What, Now?

This one’s a little trickier. In this case, the writer quoted what they referred to as a “psalm,” which read, “One can chase a thousand, and two and ten can put ten thousand to flight.” The writer explained this to mean “you can do great things on your own.”

Now, this one set off alarm bells for me right away, partially since I was a very well-churched kid, so this “pinged” right away as a Biblical quotation, albeit not one I could immediately place. My first stop in this case wasn’t a broad Google search, then, but a search on the well-known Bible Gateway website, which allows users to search a collection of just about every major English translation of the Bible. That search directed me to Deuteronomy 32:20, which reads (in the NRSV translation):

How could one have routed a thousand
    and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
    the Lord had given them up?

So, sourcing for the quote wasn’t a problem–its provenance was clear. But looking at the full passage in situ revealed it to be what I sometimes call a “Princess Bride quote,” that is, one where “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Notice, first, that the writer had somehow gotten hold of an adulterated, incomplete version of the quote: “One can chase a thousand, and two and ten can put ten thousand to flight.” Despite a number of searches using various strategies, I could not find a single English translation that phrases the passage in exactly that way. Again, this is not a criticism of the writer: it’s surprisingly easy for these kinds of issues to slip into works-in-progress. One can misremember a phrase, jot down a quote incorrectly in one’s notes, or even unconsciously reword a quote in one’s passion to emphasize a particular idea. And, precisely because writers are passionate about their ideas, it can be legitimately hard for a writer to spot this kind of problem in their own work. That doesn’t mean the writer is a poor writer. It only means that the writer, like any other, needs an editor!

The problem with this particular misquote comes when one looks at the entire passage from which the quote is derived. In the context of the story being told in this part of Deuteronomy, the quote is from a poem “recited” by Moses to his followers near the end of his life. He’s feeling that his end is near, and worries that his people will stop following his lead (and, worse, stop following God) once he’s not around anymore. So he “preaches” to them in the form of a poem in which he imagines God, at some projected future time when Moses’ people have been unfaithful, speaking to them about the consequences of their unfaithfulness. One of the consequences Moses imagines is that God would allow a rival people-group to conquer them by routing them in battle–and, of course, if God decided to support the other guys, he could arrange things so that only one or two enemies (with God’s help) could rout the entire Israelite army all by themselves. So the meaning of the passage in question is basically “How could one or even two of those pipsqueak rivals have routed thousands of you (Israelites) in combat unless God had purposefully abandoned you?”

So the idea, here, is that Moses’ people could never take care of themselves without God’s help. Notice that this is the exact opposite of the writer’s interpretation (“you can do anything”).

The potential consequence of such a misquote is that the Bible is a pretty well-known text, so many savvy readers may realize that the quote is misused and misinterpreted, undermining their sense of the writer’s credibility.

One immediate takeaway from all three of these examples, especially for beginning/inexperienced writers, is that doing broad, topical searches on Google to “find quotations” can be a dangerous practice. Such searches draw most of their results from popular websites that merely collect quotations circulating on the internet, and while they’ll usually attribute the quote to a person, they never do the homework necessary to provide the original sources of the quotations they list. Such quotes are often misquoted, very often misattributed, and, of course, are always presented in isolation with no context, which can easily lead to embarrassing misinterpretations. As I’ll explain in more detail in future posts, it’s usually much better not to search for quotations online at all, but rather to quote from what you know: from your own knowledge, reading, and research. That’s the best way to guarantee that your quotes will truly enhance what you’re saying and avoid potential damage to your readers’ sense of your credibility.

More broadly, all three of these quotes–and many, many more like them–led me to the thought that I’d love to be able to refer beginning writers (and maybe some experienced ones) to a resource that covers the basics of quoting well: When to quote, when not to, how to quote responsibly, how and where to source your quotes, how to attribute them properly, etc. My next several posts will be such a resource.

So, if you’re a new-to-intermediate writer, what else would you like to know about quoting well? If you’re a fellow editor, what kinds of dodgy or interestingly misused or misattributed quotes have you come across in your editing adventures? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

Deciding Between ‘Awoken’ and ‘Awakened’: An Editor’s Dilemma

The first page of the manuscript of the Old English poem Beowulf, British LIbrary MS Cotton Vittelius A.XV

Here’s a question:

What, as editors, do we do when faced with two technically “correct” choices in a manuscript? What swings the decision in favor of one option or the other?

I ran into an interesting conundrum this past week that raised this question for me, and sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole of research. Both the research and the question it raised seemed worth a post, and I’d be genuinely interested in learning how other editors think about these kinds of situations.

A Wee Conundrum

The problem concerned a single verb, in a sentence that contained the following, in which the writer talked about experiencing:

…the hunger awoken by a taste of the Spirit’s power…

The sticky bit, as many of you have already noticed, is the past participle, “awoken.” In my original edits, I went with my knee-jerk reaction, which was to leave that word choice as-is. Generally, when I’m proofreading I tend to favor the writer’s words unless there’s an actual error, and since “awoken” is grammatically correct there, I left it alone. Another editor working on the same text, however, changed it to a different past participle, “awakened,” as though “awoken” was a grammatical error.

Of course, that difference raised the question in my mind: is one of those options “more correct” in a modern English text? If so, which one?

Turns out that that question is a more pesky little bugger than one might, at first, imagine.

The History of “Awakened” and “Awoken”

Thinking through the issue, I was able to draw on my experience as a long-time student of the Old English language and reader of OE literature. Part of the problem is that both words (“awoken” and “awakened”) are holdovers from Old English, in which there are also two verbs with the general meaning of “to wake up from sleep:” awacan and awacian.

Now, one important thing to note is that Old English itself has a long history, in which the language changed and evolved over hundreds of years, as all languages do. One effect of that evolution is that there are two general “classes” of verbs in Old English, generally referred to as “strong” and “weak.” The major difference between the two is how they signal changes in tense. “Strong” verbs typically signal the past tense through an internal vowel change, such as from an “a” sound to an “o” sound. “Weak” verbs generally indicate that same shift with the addition of a consonant, either a “d” or a “t.” Thus “weak” verbs tend to become (and look more like) what we call “regular” verbs in modern English.

So, the first of the two OE verbs that broadly mean “to wake up from sleep” is awacan, which, in OE linguistics-speak, is a class VI strong verb. So, the first-person present tense of awacan is awace, the first-person past changes the first vowel to an -o to form awoc, and changes the vowel again to an ash (æ) to form the past participle awæcen. The modern English descendant of this word is awake, and it preserves the Old English vowel change to form the past tense and the past participle, so the first-person present tense is “I awake,” the first-person past tense is “I awoke” and the past participle is “awoken.”

The second OE verb is awacian, an OE “weak” verb. The first-person present tense is awace, and the first-person past tense gets signaled by an added -d: awacede. The past participle form adds the prefix ge- and and ending -d to form gewaced. The modern English descendant in this case is the verb awaken, and, as does its ancestor, it follows the more usual modern English “regular” verb pattern, so the first-person present tense form is awaken, the first-person past tense is awakened, and the past participle is awakened.

So, here we have a situation where modern English, though it doesn’t really need two different verbs with a single meaning, has them anyway because we’ve adopted them, like many other modern English words, from Old English. Not surprisingly, the different ways we conjugate the two modern English verbs derive from their Old English ancestors. The reasons for both the existence of the two words and the grammatical differences between the two are entirely historical.

Does History Help the Editor?

Unfortunately, this means that there does not appear to be any grammatical basis for deciding that one of these modern English words is more “correct” than the other (assuming that either word is used in the grammatically correct way). So, in the sentence in question, where the writer expresses a “hunger awoken by a taste of the Spirit’s power,” I don’t see a grammatical reason to favor “awakened” over “awoken,” as both are grammatically correct. The current definitions in Merriam-Webster don’t provide any help, since it gives the same meaning for both: simply waking up from a state of sleep.

But could there be some help in the words’ ancestors? According to Bosworth and Toller (one of the major Old English dictionaries), awacian (from which we get awaken, awakened) seems only to carry the meaning of “to wake up from a state of sleep.” However, for awacan there are a few other potential meanings connected to historical uses of the word, which include “to be born” and “to wake into being.” A historical example given for the latter meaning is the sentence “Twá þeóda awócon” or “Two nations arose.” So at least at a glance, it appears, at least, that awacan might have a more expansive range of meanings–meanings that include more figurative ideas of what it means to awaken–the idea of something coming into being or arising into a person’s consciousness.

One thing I know about words is that they have a tendency to carry–sometimes only subconsciously–traces of the places they have been. Different words, even those with the same meanings, can evoke different connotations that derive from their histories. Such meanings can register with readers even when they’re not consciously aware of those histories. If you’ve ever had the feeling that one synonym just sounds more “right” in a given situation than another without being able to put your finger on why that’s the case, you’ve probably experienced this phenomenon. That feeling isn’t just coming from some inexplicable place in your gut. You’re likely reacting to the history behind words you’ve been using, and the ways and circumstances in which you’ve used them and heard others use them, throughout your life.

So perhaps this information does, in fact, help with my editorial choice. Surely in that sentence about a “hunger awoken by a taste of the Spirit’s power,” the writer is clearly not talking about a literal awakening from a state of sleep, but rather about the figurative sense of an idea or desire “awakening” in his consciousness. On that basis, the part participle awoken may well be the better choice here, as there is evidence that it has historically carried more figurative meanings.

What Say You?

All that said, I am very interested to hear from other editors: how do you think about situations like this? When there is more than one grammatically correct option, how do you decide which alternative is favorable? What, to you, are the most important considerations? Feel free to post a comment below with your thoughts and ideas.

Rethinking William Wallace with a Medieval Poet

The Beatus page from a British psalter. This is similar to what Hary imagines Wallace reading as he dies.

I’ve long had an interest in medieval Scottish literature and culture. For a number of years, before I hung out my shingle as an editor, a big part of my job was to be a scholar of the same. For that reason, anniversaries of landmark events in Scottish history tend to catch my attention, like today’s: August 23, 2024 is the 719th anniversary of the execution, at English hands, of the Scottish knight Sir William Wallace. Wallace is known, these days, primarily as the central character in the 1995 Mel Gibson film Braveheart. Much of the plot of that movie is derived from a fascinating long Scots poem, written by a poet generally known as “Blind Hary” around 1477, entitled The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace.

Even though the film takes a number of its plot points from the poem, I’ve always been struck by the stark difference between the way the poem, as opposed to the movie, portrays that historic execution. The movie’s portrayal is much more similar to English chronicle accounts, focusing, as it does, on the gruesome physical torture and mutilation of Wallace’s execution. The method of execution was a particularly macabre one, as Wallace was drawn (dragged through the streets, tied to a hurdle), hung until nearly dead, revived, and then disemboweled alive before being cut into several large pieces which were then hung up in various strategic locations to advertise his death. That particular form of execution was designed as an especially nasty brand of political theater reserved only for convicted traitors (the English saw Wallace, who fought for Scottish independence from England during a time when the English had essentially taken over, as a traitor to English rule). The message was basically, “this is what the state can do to the bodies of those who defy its sovereignty.” If you’ve ever seen the Braveheart movie, its portrayal is a pretty graphic (and, really, pretty toned-down) representation of that mode of execution.

Blind Hary, on the other hand, treats the execution much differently. Here’s Hary’s account of the incident, first in the original Scots, followed by my own (admittedly very rough) modern English translation:


A psalter buk Wallace had on him ever,
Fra his childeid fra it wald nocht desever.
Better he trowit in viagis for to speid,
Bot than he was dispolyeid of his weid.
This grace he ast at Lord Clyffurd that knycht,
To lat him haiff his Psalter buk in sycht.
He gert a preyst it oppyn befor him hauld
Quhill thai till him had done all at thai wauld.
Stedfast he red for ocht thai did him thar.
Feyll Sotheroun said at Wallace feld na sayr.
Gud devocioun so was his begynnyng
Conteynd tharwith, and fair was his endyng,
Quhill spech and spreyt at anys all can fayr
To lestand blys, we trow forevermayr.

Wallace had a psalter-book on him that he’d carried and would never part with ever since his childhood. But now he was stripped of his clothing. He asked this grace of the knight Lord Clifford: to allow him to have his psalter book in sight. He had a priest hold it open before him until they [the English executioners] had done everything they wished to him. He steadfastly read, no matter what they did to him there. Many English said that Wallace felt no pain. Thus the good devotion of his beginning was carried through to his ending. Until speech and spirit can fare, all at once, to lasting bliss, we trust forevermore.

What interests me about this description is that Hary basically skips over all the gruesome physical details of the torture and instead shows Wallace’s focus, at the end, to be in an entirely spiritual place. Hary takes the opportunity to remind us that Wallace, ever since he was a child, had always carried a psalter (a volume containing the Book of Psalms from the Old Testament) with him, hearkening all the way back to his spiritual beginnings, before his nationalist quest for an independent Scotland (the content of most of the poem!) ever began. Then Hary shows Wallace being stripped naked for the execution, at which point Wallace, instead of expressing any kind of concern for that political mission, disregards it, and just wants to focus on that childhood psalter. His focus thereon is so intense that, according to Hary, several of the English witnesses of the execution said he felt no pain! (That point, by the way, creates a reference to the then-popular genre of narratives of Christian martyrdoms, where the martyr for the faith is often said to have felt no pain.)

It’s worth dwelling a bit on exactly where Wallace’s focus goes, here. The most common image a medieval reader would likely associate with a psalter would be that of a psalter’s initial page, often called the “beatus page,” after the first sentence, in Latin, of Psalm 1: Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum, et in via peccatorum non stetit, et in cathedra pestilentiae non sedit; sed in lege Domini voluntas ejus, et in lege ejus meditabitur die ac nocte. (“Blessed is the man who does not abide in the counsel of the impious, and does not stand in the path of sinners, and does not sit in the seat of scoffers; but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on that law day and night.”) The beatus pages of psalters were often given very special treatment and often intricately decorated, meant to be, in themselves, focal points for spiritual meditation. Hary goes well out of his way, here, to show readers that Wallace’s mind is fixed on the idea of setting aside worldly conflicts and meditating on the divine. A far cry from Mel Gibson crying out about his political “Freeeeeeedom!” at the end of Braveheart.

It’s as though, where the movie wants to be all about Wallace’s nationalism (in many ways equating it to a more American brand of nationalism), and makes its narrative of the execution all about Wallace’s political cause, Hary goes an entirely different direction, a very spiritual direction that questions that nationalist cause. This seems, to me, to pick up on other hints late in Hary’s poem, where Wallace seems to begin to see the reality created by all the violence he’s wrought in the name of nation as increasingly futile and even unreal. Hary says of him at one point that “he seis the warld all full of fantasye.” Everything goes dark and surreal for him, until, at the very end, stripped of all other constructs, he rediscovers the divine.

On Reading “Classic” Novels

[Note: Having spent the last number of posts concentrating on the tools and hardware we use for writing, I decided to switch gears for a while and talk a bit about matters of reading for a few posts.]

I’ve always thought that, as an editor, one of the most important things I can bring to the table is my long experience as a scholar of literature. After all, anyone can memorize a style manual or a set of grammatical rules. It’s something else to know not just what works in English, but why it works, based on extensive experience of the whole historical tradition of writing in English, from its roots in Old English to the present. What we write in English isn’t just about a set of rules, but about that long tradition, and the many cultures, events, and movements that have imbued English with its expressiveness and dynamism.

As a teacher of literature, too, I’ve encountered a lot of questions about the value of engaging with that tradition. Why deal with all that “old stuff?” What’s the use of bothering with Beowulf, or Chaucer, or Shakespeare, or Jane Austen, or any of those crusty “classics” we’re told, for some reason, we’re supposed to read? I’ve also encountered a lot of what one might call “literary abuse,” where someone had a terrible experience with a “classic” work because it had been used on them like a blunt instrument. Where some sadistic teacher, somewhere down the line, had decided that Dickens, for some reason, was just good for you, in the way that, I dunno, bran or castor oil are good for you, and, dammit, you’d better choke them down no matter how bad they taste.

But, you know, it’s odd. Of all the works one might call “classic literary novels,” I’m not sure I’ve ever really come across one I’d classify as “tedious.” There are some that I have felt as tedious at one time (I remember feeling that way the first time I read Wuthering Heights), but I can’t think of a single instance where that didn’t turn out to be about me rather than the novel: often I just wasn’t ready for it, and the sense of tediousness came from my own lack of understanding or maturity. When I encountered those novels later, they spoke to me like crazy. As a really stark example, I remember trying to read Moby Dick in junior high, and just being bored and bewildered (what’s all this crap about whale trivia?). But in college, I read it in a class where I was guided by a wonderful professor who helped me understand what was really going on, and that time it was everything but tedious. I was also mature enough to understand more sophisticated humor, and was astonished to realize that the book that I’d found tedious was, as a college junior, making me laugh out loud all the time!

These days, the only books I find tedious are the ones that really don’t have anything to say: formulaic romances, tired “sexy” books (Fifty Shades of Gray was the yawner of the century as far as I’m concerned—about as sexy as dry-humping a cardboard box), emo teen fiction (I tried to read the first Twilight novel and was asleep by the second chapter), and stuff with clear sectarian agendas (John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart just made me groan about four times per page).

I’d say there are a couple of keys to reading “classic” novels. One is that, especially for stuff written before the second half of the 20th century, it’s important to realize that they were written for people who tended to have more leisure time, and for whom books were a more expensive investment. A beach-read thriller that you can blast through in three hours would have made a 19th-century reader feel robbed. They’re meant to be taken slowly. So when you read them, it’s important to just kind of relax into them, read as long as feels good. Put the book down when you find yourself tiring of it. It doesn’t matter if it takes you six months or a year to get through it. Just roll with the book’s own pace and don’t try to speed it up and make it something it’s not.

Also, it’s perfectly fine if you’re reading a novel and just finding it frustrating, to put it down. There’s no reason to force anything. Sometimes it’s just not your time to encounter that novel yet, and that’s okay. But I’d encourage you not to dismiss a novel just because of that experience. Hang on to it. Wait until the impulse to try it comes back around (which it probably will). Sometimes a novel that has nothing for you at 25 can speak to you like crazy at 40. Don’t assume it’s a terrible novel just because your first encounter isn’t what you hoped. Just stick it back on the shelf. One day you’ll come back around to it and it might be incredibly meaningful. If you never get back around to it, that’s okay too. No one’s obligated to love a novel just because it gets labeled a “classic.” Just donate it to your local public library, and maybe it’ll speak to someone else.

Just don’t stop reading.

The RetroWriter: Using A Vintage Computer for Distraction-Free Writing

[Note: This will be the last of a short series of posts centered on hardware for writing. A new series, starting soon, will take up more direct writing- and editing-centered concerns.]

In the last installment of this blog, I outlined my creation of a portable digital device for distraction-free (or at least distraction-minimized) writing, utilizing an older (but still pretty modern) laptop.

WordStar 3.0 running on my Commodore 128D in CP/M mode.

This post outlines another somewhat quirkier solution. In this case, I am composing this post–no joke–on my Commodore 128D, a 1987-vintage 8-bit microcomputer.

The machine I used for this project is the result of a hobby I got into a few years ago when I was quarantined, like everyone else, during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’d been reading a few articles about the growing hobby of retro computing and viewing a wonderful series of YouTube videos posted by the knowledgeable (and extremely friendly) uber-hobbyist David Murray, also known as The 8-Bit Guy. Those videos had me waxing nostalgic about some of the games and hardware I used back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Then I remembered that one of my old machines–this very Commodore, which I purchased in the summer of 1988 for writing my undergraduate college papers–was still in my possession and probably still in good shape, having spent the last thirty years safely stored in its original box under the stairs in my parents’ basement. So, I dug it out, along with the peripherals and software that had survived along with it, just to see if it would still power on.

Once I’d confirmed that, I had to go online to find a replacement for the original Magnavox amber monochrome CRT I’d used with it years ago, which had been given away at some point. I was unable to find a duplicate of that monitor, but did find an old Zenith amber CRT that fit the bill nicely without being too expensive. I took everything home, set it up, and embarked, at first, on an enjoyable nostalgia trip, resurrecting games I’d spent many hours enjoying back in the day and even browsing through the many floppy disks full of papers, stories, and poems I’d written in my college years (some of which were downright embarrassing to revisit, but it was fun just the same).

Even as I was still in full-on nostalgia mode, though, I began to wonder whether this old hardware could be used for purposes beyond mere nostalgia. Might there be ways an 8-bit microcomputer from the 1980s could be made useful for real, daily work and fully relevant to the present?

I immediately thought back to the purpose for which I’d bought the thing in the first place: writing. It had always served me well in that capacity back in the day, after all, and it held many of the qualities that many have had to re-create in order to achieve less-distracting computing in the present: it wasn’t (naturally) designed to be connected to the internet; it was designed to run only one app at a time using a minimal, mostly text-based interface, and I remembered that I’d always loved that amber monochrome CRT monitor, even though color monitors were certainly available at the time since its warm-but-muted glow and shading were much easier on the eyes than the color monitors of the time for long writing sessions.

My first try at using the 128 as a present-day writing machine involved simply going back to the word processing software I originally used, a program called “Word Writer 128.” While I found that program as easy to use and as perfectly adequate for composing as I ever had, two things got in the way: for one, there was no easy, direct way to transfer files from that computer to a more modern one. For another, the file format used by Word Writer 128 was proprietary, meaning that there was no decent way to convert those files to a format readable by a modern word processor or text editor. So, while Word Writer may have been adequate, say, for personal journaling that I would only ever access on the 128, it wouldn’t work for writing for any other purpose.

As I researched the issue further, however, I found that the vibrant hobbyist community around these older computers has been hard at work developing creative ways to make them more usable in the present. One such development was crucial for me: a few very technically-minded users had developed devices called “wi-fi modems” that solved the basic file transfer problem.

For you post Gen-X-ers out there, explaining this will take a small history lesson: most early microcomputers had ports that accepted an add-on device called a “modem.” While the internet was not yet around (save in very incunabular, text-only form), a modem would allow one to connect to other computers, as well as pre-internet online communities known as Bulletin Board Services (think of these localized “mini-internets,” each with its own limited number of users) by dialing into them over a standard telephone landline. These were, in essence, the original online social networks). What a modern “wifi modem” does, essentially, is plug into the modem port on an older computer and “trick” the computer into thinking it’s got an old-style modem connected to a phone line–when, in reality, it’s actually accessing your entirely-modern home wifi network. This gives those older computers basic modern networking and internet functionality, including the ability to easily transfer files to other computers on one’s home network. (My wifi modem comes from a one-person outfit called commodore4ever.)

With a wifi modem up and running so I could transfer files easily, I then had to tackle the file format problem. Initially, I did this by taking advantage of an interesting feature of the Commodore 128D that even many of its original uses never knew about or used. Explaining this also requires a little history: back when the 128D came out, Commodore’s predecessor product, the Commodore 64, had become the best-selling microcomputer of all time, offering, in many ways, significantly more functionality than its competitors (such as the Apple II series and early MS-DOS based PC’s) at a much lower cost. For that reason, the 64 was instrumental, historically speaking, in making computers household items. While the Commodore 64 had effectively captured the home market, Commodore wanted the successor to the 64, the Commodore 128 (and its close but slightly later cousin, the 128D), to be competitive in the business market as well. At the time, the operating system favored by most business-oriented computers was one called CP/M. MS-DOS, at the time, was an upstart competitor to CP/M, though that would soon change (another interesting story in itself). So, Commodore decided that the 128, in addition to running its native Commodore Basic operating system, would also run CP/M, via the inclusion of a second, entirely different processor, known as a Z80, on the motherboard. This was a pretty wild idea, and something that’s never really done anymore. Imagine a computer manufacturer nowadays creating a single machine that, within its electronic innards, contained the hardware that would allow you to run it as either a PC or a Mac at your choice. While, alas, the 128 still never really caught on as a business machine, the capability remained, enabling the computer to run, among other things, one of the most popular word-processing apps of the day, known as WordStar.

This is where we return to my file compatibility problem: While there was no way to convert files from my old Commodore-centric word processor to modern formats, there are, it turned out, easy ways to do that with the format used by WordStar. Wordstar also happens to have a lot more functionality as a word processor than the basic tool I’d used back in college.

So, having found a copy of WordStar for CP/M on the very modern internet and using my trusty new wifi modem to transfer those files to my Commodore and write them into CP/M formatted floppy disks, I was able to start composing in WordStar. It didn’t hurt that I’d read a few articles stating that WordStar was the word processor of choice of George R.R. Martin, author of the popular Game of Thrones series of novels. The article mentioned that one of the reasons he continued to use WordStar (in his case, on an old DOS-based machine) was the way it promoted focus through a combination of the lack of multitasking and an internet connection. (I imagine, too, that it was a security thing for Martin–when every tech-savvy journalist/hacker is out there trying to get ‘hold of an advance copy of his draft of the latest GoT novel, the safest possible move would be to draft it on a computer that doesn’t connect to the internet at all!)

I continue to use my 128D with this setup, especially for more personal writing (like personal journaling) that I’d rather keep secure and completely inaccessible to hacking or other security issues that come with a normal internet connection. The only time the computer in this configuration is connected to a network is when I enable my Wi-Fi modem to transfer files from the native floppy disk storage media over my home network to one of my modern machines.

An Alternative Route

The 128D running as a Linux terminal. In this photo, I’m using a terminal based program for daily To-do lists, called Todo.txt.

While the above setup works well, I still wondered if there might be an easier way to deal with both the file transfer and compatibility problems. Another solution occurred to me when I learned that it was possible to run a terminal app on my commodore, essentially enabling it to act as a text-based interface for one of the other modern computers on my network. I have, on my home network, a small, inexpensive computer called a Raspberry Pi that I use primarily as a connected storage device for certain kinds of data (as well as a server for an old but reliable HP laser printer). It runs a very lightweight version of the Linux operating system and uses very little power. So, with a good secure setup, it’s a great way of securely storing personal files that allows me to access those files from basically any computer, anywhere, without leaving an electricity-sucking desktop machine on all day. Without getting too technical with the explanations, there is a piece of software I can run on my old Commodore that essentially allows me to connect with that Raspberry Pi computer and interact with it in a text-only interface. In other words, I’m typing on my Commodore but actually interacting with that small Linux computer over my network. I mentioned in my previous post that I like using an app called Vim for composing, and Vim runs natively in a Linux terminal. In that way, I am able to connect my Commodore to that Linux computer and write in Vim. Any files I write using that setup are automatically available to the rest of my home network, and since Vim uses a plain-text file format, the files I generate are readable by just about any editor or word processor out there.

This terminal setup is what I use for most of my everyday composing. My Commodore 128D lives in the same room as my main writing/editing workstation, so it’s easy to go into focused composition mode by simply turning off my workstation, firing up the Commodore 128, and writing away without distraction from texts or emails.

Obviously, in this post, I’ve merely described what I’ve set up without going into the techy details of how I did so. The idea here has been simply to point out yet another solution for distraction-free digital writing and to suggest that even much older computers can be repurposed to do real work in the present.

If you’re interested in the technical aspects of how to create one or both of these setups, I’ve documented the process for both over at my experimental tech blog, unvarnishedgeek.github.io. Here’s the article on setting up a Commodore 128 to run WordStar for CP/M, and here’s the one on setting up the Commodore 128 as a Linux terminal.

I’m happy with both solutions, as they help me get daily work done while scratching my nerdy retro-computing itch at the same time.

As always, I’m willing to help out with questions about creating such a setup for yourself and interested in suggestions about improving upon the ideas I’ve laid out here. Feel free to leave those questions and suggestions in the comments!

Introducing the Writebox: Creating A Distraction-Free Writing Device from an Older Laptop

As promised, this is the first of two blog posts about creating a dedicated, distraction-minimizing device for writing, with a focus on composing. I’ll start with the idea that I think is the most accessible to everyone. I call it the “Writebox.” The second post will look at a more quirky, fun, “hobbyist-oriented” solution that might appeal to retro-computing geeks like myself.

Why Dedicate a Machine to the Single Task of Composing?

Manufacturers’ image of the Asus T100TA, my device of choice for this project.

Back when I was teaching writing courses to undergraduates, I would sometimes start the conversation about the writing process by showing a clip from the original Star Trek, where Captain Kirk defeats an artificially intelligent computer (turned to eeevil) by making it compute some kind of impossible paradox. The computer would, of course, confuse itself, its very speech and syntax would start to break down, and, of course, the prop computer would start to sputter, spark, blow fuses, and smoke like a house on fire. “That’s what happens to your brain,” I’d say, “when you try to do all the tasks involved in creating a piece of writing all at once.” Then we’d have a discussion where we’d start by listing all of the things one needs to think about in the process of creating a finished piece, from one’s knowledge of the subject to matters of structure, grammar, and style, to processes like revision and editing, to the technical matters of formatting and documentation. When we’d filled the blackboard with all those things, it was no wonder that trying to think about all of them at once would easily fry one’s brain and result in very stilted efforts, if not flat-out paralysis.

From there we’d talk about how important it is to concentrate on one part of the process at a time. I’d tout this as a matter of pure practicality: “How to write something good while not driving yourself crazy and still having time to eat and pee.”

Of course, one of the most difficult parts of the writing process is ex nihilo composition. Conquering the blank page, or the blank screen. For that reason, it’s one of the most important parts of the process to take by itself–to leave behind all other considerations and concentrate, single-mindedly, on conjuring those words from thin air. Once those initial words are there–even if they’re not much good at that point–then one can move to the (cognitively very different) processes of improving them, saying what you want to say more clearly. Processes like revision, editing, proofreading, formatting documentation, etc.

Writing in a digital world often adds two more complications. For one, since we tend to handle those later processes using digital tools, it’s often convenient to generate machine-readable text from the get-go. For another, the very computers on which we create such text are very good at introducing their own brand of distractions, from annoying pop-up advertising to the temptations of the web browser and social media. Even more insidiously, there is the temptation to edit oneself as one composes, which is often encouraged by the editing- and formatting-focused nature of popular word processing software like Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, or Pages.

Consequently, there’s something to be said for a digital tool that makes it easier to create that single-minded focus on composition while eliminating at least as much digital distraction as possible.

In my last blog post, I highlighted a new series of commercially made devices designed to fit that very niche. While those devices do fit the bill, they’re intentionally designed to be “luxury” items–very high-quality devices made in relatively small quantities for a very niche market. All of which is just another way of saying hella expensive! This is not a criticism of Astrohaus, the manufacturer, of course. If you like those devices and can afford one, there’s no reason not to spring for one.

At the same time, the high cost makes such devices inaccessible to many writers who might benefit from one, so I’ve been asking myself whether it might be possible to create a device with at least very similar functionality at a much lower cost.

One of my solutions, which I’ll describe here, has been to repurpose an old, unused laptop into a composition-focused writing device. I think I’ve been able to reproduce much of the functionality of the expensive Freewrite at no immediate cost.

Requirements for the Device

I set out to create a device with the following characteristics:

  1. The device should boot directly into an interface geared toward composition. Turn it on and start writing.
  2. The writing interface should be bare-bones, encouraging pure composition and discouraging the impulse to self-edit. Only the most basic formatting functions should be readily accessible (bold, italic, ordered and unordered lists, headings).
  3. The device should contain no apps other than those that (mostly invisibly) support the writing interface. No browsers or applications with non-writing purposes.
  4. While no browsers, etc. should be present, the device should maintain sufficient internet connectivity to transfer files from the device to the cloud or other external storage.
  5. As much as possible, the processes in #4 should be automated, so the writer doesn’t have to think about anything but composition while using the device, but can then readily pick up the composed content later to revise, edit, etc. on another device.
  6. The interface should be as eye-friendly as possible to promote calm focus and prevent eyestrain, insofar as this is possible with a backlit (rather than e-ink) screen.
  7. Bluetooth connectivity should be present so one can use peripherals like a high-quality mechanical keyboard.

What I Used

In my case, the device I chose for this project is an AsusT100TA. These were originally introduced in 2015 and were touted as “ultraportable” convertible laptops (the screen and keyboard dock detach so the device can function as a touchscreen tablet). They were shipped with Windows 8, and designed not to be powerhouses, but to run basic productivity software with maximum battery life (the manufacturer advertised 11 hours). I chose this device for a few reasons:

  • I had it lying around! While I had updated the machine to run Windows 10, it ran slow as molasses on the T100. Often, security updates failed because the device, even with minimal software installed, didn’t have enough storage even to download the update files. So it sat on a shelf, unused.
  • While slow (under Windows 10), the machine has rock-solid build quality. It’s stood up to a lot of punishment over the years and is still in perfect shape, mechanically and electronically speaking. And, though it no longer lasts a full 11 hours, the time I get out of the original battery is still quite respectable (more like six hours).
  • It has the best-feeling keyboard I’ve ever used on a smaller laptop. Not quite as nice as a high-quality mechanical, but it feels good enough to make the typing experience very pleasant (at least to me).

All these qualities made the T100 seem a good candidate, and it cost no more than what I shelled out for the (refurbished) device a decade ago, which, even then, was less than $200. A similar set of modifications could be made on almost any older laptop that one might have lying around.

What I Did

[Note: I’m simply going to describe what I did, here, without getting into any of the technical details of how I went about it. If you’re interested in those details or would like some help, just leave me a comment! I may also, at a later date, post a more technical set of instructions at my experimental tech blog, unvarnishedgeek.github.io.]

My first step in modifying the T100 was to replace Windows 10 with a very lightweight version of the Linux operating system, called Xubuntu. Since Linux is generally much easier on system resources than Windows, Xubuntu Linux runs extremely well–I’d say downright snappy–even on this older machine.

This blog post under creation on my “Writebox,” the modified Asus T100TA. (Apologies for the reflections!).

I also made several modifications to the original installation:

  • Removed all nonessential or potentially distracting software, such as Libreoffice, any web browsers (Firefox and Chrome in this case), and other nonessentials like games, email clients, etc.
  • Replaced the desktop environment that Xubuntu installs, called XFCE, with a window manager called i3. i3 is even lighter-weight and even more bare-bones than XFCE, making the machine run faster and further minimizing distractions.
  • Made sure wifi and bluetooth connectivity were working.
  • Added a few applications and tools, including my writing tool of choice, called Vim (more on this below), and some tools to help with things like transferring files over a network.

Here’s what I did in terms of each of the functionality criteria I listed above:

This blog post in Vim, showing off the “solarized” color scheme.
  1. Booting directly into the writing environment: I chose to take a slightly more indirect route with this. In my setup, the machine boots to a login screen that requires a password (I added this for security reasons). Once one enters the password, the computer goes straight to the window manager where a single key combination (Win+Enter) pulls up my full-screen writing interface.
  2. Bare-bones writing interface: To achieve this, I used a program called Vim, which is more widely known as a long-standing code editor for programmers. However, I’ve found that, with the addition of a few plugins, Vim makes an excellent, no-frills tool for composition (I may write a future post just about writing in Vim). The drawback of Vim, for some, is that there’s a bit of a learning curve involved if you haven’t used it before. What I’ve found for myself is that once I got comfy with Vim’s keyboard-based commands, it sped up my composition considerably, so it’s been my editor of choice for a long time. One of the plugins I’ve installed in Vim is one that allows it to use Markdown syntax, which is a very simple set of conventions that allow you to include basic formatting, such as boldface and italic texts, ordered and unordered lists, headings, etc. You can find more information on Markdown here. If you’d rather not mess around with a command-line tool like Vim, I recommend Focuswriter, which is a graphical app still geared toward distraction-free composition, and very customizable in terms of look and feel. It is a free and open-sourced program available on all major platforms.
  3. Nothing but writing apps. Vim is literally the only writing tool installed on the machine. As I’ve mentioned, there are a few other “helper” tools present in the background, but the only app one interacts with is the editor.
  4. Maintain internet connectivity for file transfers. I’ve set the machine to automatically connect to my wifi network on startup. Without any other apps or browsers running, there are no pop-ups or distractions despite the consistent internet connection.
  5. Automated File Transfer: I haven’t quite figured out full automation for file transfers yet, but, as a workaround until I figure that out, I’ve made it as easy as possible. Basically, when one is done with a writing session, one simply exits the editor and then just hits the “s” key and then Enter. The system prompts for a password, and then all files are backed up to secure storage on my personal server. There are ways to automate this more fully, which I’ll implement in the future.
  6. An Eye-Friendly Screen: To accomplish this, I applied what’s known as the “Solarized” color scheme to my terminal app. The Solarized color scheme was developed for Vim by a programmer named Ethan Schoonover. It uses a combination of muted blues and grays to keep the contrast level easy on the eyes without making text less readable. The terminal app that’s installed with Xubuntu allows one to select this color scheme in its preference menu.
  7. Bluetooth Connectivity Enabled: I’ve kept Bluetooth turned on, and installed a few helper apps to make it easier to pair peripherals with the device. On occasion, I’ve used a Dierya mechanical keyboard, which is indeed nice, but in most cases, I find that the native keyboard on the T100 provides a perfectly comfortable and pleasant typing experience.

That’s it! I’ve already done a lot of composing on this device (including this blog post), and have found that it has, indeed, helped me become more productive in my writing. My per-day word count has definitely increased, and it’s been a pleasure to work on.

An Even Easier Option with Windows

Let’s say, however, that you’d like this kind of functionality but aren’t a particularly techy person, and don’t want to mess around with something scary like Linux. You can still make some modifications to Windows to make it more composition-friendly. Depending on the machine you use, it may not run as fast as the above Linux-based option, and there will still be more unavoidable annoyances with Windows (such as automated updates). So it might not be quite as elegant or purpose-dedicated as the Linux version, but it should still help you focus on composition, while requiring less technical knowledge and fiddling to set up:

  1. From the start menu, go to “settings” and then “apps,” and uninstall any apps that don’t directly relate to composition. Uninstall any “office” apps such as Office 365 or Libreoffice. Uninstall any games. Uninstall Edge and any other browser software. Uninstall any social media or communication-related apps such as Facebook Messenger, any email clients, etc. Basically, if it produces pop-ups or tempts you to interface with social media or anything on the internet that’s not your cloud storage, ditch it.
  2. Install a text editor that’s made to help you focus on composition. Again, I recommend Focuswriter. Experiment with the settings in Focuswriter to create an overall look and color scheme that is both appealing and feels easy on your eyes (there are several built-in themes, and you can create your own).
  3. Install a cloud storage service like Dropbox or Pcloud. Create folders within Dropbox (or whatever you use) for all your writing. This will automatically sync your files to the cloud and allow you to access them on another computer for revision, editing, etc.
  4. Declutter the Windows desktop. Lots of folks keep many files and shortcut icons on the desktop. Ditch all of these (except the icon for your chosen text editor) by selecting them and dragging them onto the “trash” icon. Then, right-click the trash icon and select “empty trash” to permanently delete those files. I think it’s also a good idea to select a soothing, neutral wallpaper.
  5. Using Windows Explorer (the file manager), go through your Documents, Downloads, and any other folders that contain personal files. If you find any files you want to keep, transfer them to a USB stick. Then, delete all non-writing-related files you find.
  6. Check what services are running in the background. Often several programs and services set themselves up upon installation to run automatically on startup. These take up precious system resources, and most of them will be things you don’t need for this device. To check to see what’s running on startup, go to the Start menu, click Settings, then Apps. Then select “Startup” from the menu on the left-hand side. You’ll see a list of all the programs that are set to run on startup. For example, OneNote, Word, a messaging client, and other tools might be set to run that way, and you won’t need them! Simply un-check all of the apps you don’t want to run on startup anymore. (Note: if you installed a cloud service like Dropbox to sync your files, be sure not to disable it!)

Taking those steps should leave you with a Windows machine that is, if not an entirely dedicated writing machine, at least more focused and friendly for pure composition.

Let Me Know How It Goes!

If you attempt any of these solutions, want any additional information or help, or have further suggestions or ideas for creating a writing-specific device, please do share your results, questions, and ideas in the comments! I’ll be fascinated to see what develops.

Affordable Alternatives to a Dedicated “Smart Typewriter”

Perhaps because so much of my social media is connected to the writing and editing community these days, I tend to get a lot of advertising about writing-oriented products, from gadgets to software to notebooks and pencils. A lot of that advertising lately has come from a company called Astrohaus, which makes a series of interesting gadgets they call “smart typewriters.” These are very niche devices focused not simply on writing in general but specifically on from-scratch composition on a device that eliminates as much potential distraction as possible (including the impulse to edit), touting their devices as a “cure” for writer’s block.

The Freewrite, Astrohaus’ mainline device. Attractive and functional, but hella expensive!

Their devices offer very limited but very focused functionality, such as:

  • A small, e-ink screen that limits how much of your document you can view at a time and promises to be easy on the eyes.
  • Software that only includes a very basic, composition-oriented text editor, with a few limited formatting options and nothing else.
  • The capacity to connect to wi-fi networks only to sync files created on the devices to the cloud in order to make them accessible/editable elsewhere.
  • High-quality components (especially very nice mechanical keyboards), and excellent build quality in general. The machines are very neat looking.

I love this idea in many ways: a pure digital writing machine focused on distraction-free composition. A chance to turn off all your other gadgets, eliminate nagging from pop-ups and social media, and the easy accessibility of the capacity to doomscroll through what could have been a productive writing session.

Some might say, “Why not just turn off the wifi on your laptop?” and they’d have a point, but for some that may still make the temptation of internet distractions all too easy, and, in any case, when using a tool like Word, the temptation to self-edit as one is composing is still ever-present. It is a temptation that has derailed many a writer.

So there’s really something to be said for the idea of a device that’s dedicated to getting as close to a pure, distraction-free composition experience that still makes one’s documents easy to transfer and edit digitally on another platform.

The main problem with Astrohaus’ devices, however, is that they are hideously expensive, with their mainline device, the Freewrite, priced at a disheartening $649, their fanciest device, the Hemingwrite, at a gob-smacking $999, the Traveler, a more portable device, at $499, and their “budget” offering, the Alpha, at $349. So while such gadgets are indeed an interesting and potentially very useful idea, they’re certainly priced well out of the budgets of many, even most, of the writers who might best make use of them.

All this got me wondering: might there be a way for we, erm, less-heavily-resourced writers to create devices that duplicate, or at least come very close, to this kind of functionality without having to choose between having such a device and eating for the next two months?

So far, I’ve managed to come up with two solutions that fit the bill. One is a little more “fun,” quirky, and related to another hobby interest of mine. For those reasons, it may not be desirable or accessible for everyone, but it has worked very well for me for a few years. Another, which I’ve created just recently, should be accessible, for very little or no money, to anyone wishing to create a distraction-free composition device.

Over the next two posts, I’ll describe each project, and provide some tips and instructions for creating your own focus-enhancing writing gadget on the cheap.

On Writing Tools and Rituals, Part Two: Considering the Digital

It’s worth saying again: your most important writing tool is your bum. Get that derriere in a chair and focus on words and ideas, whether you’re using the latest thing in computer technology or a chewed-up pencil on an old grocery sack (don’t forget that Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his seminal Letter from Birmingham Jail in pencil in the margins of an old newspaper. Good writing is mostly tool-neutral!).

But as I mentioned in my last post, it can pay to put a little thought into one’s tools. Last time, I talked about analog tools. For this and the next couple of posts, we’ll think about the digital ones.

I have to admit that I approached this post with a little more trepidation than the last: everybody’s got a computer—so what’s there to say?

I think one productive angle for thinking about digital tools is to consider taking a look just beyond the most typical ways of acquiring them. By “typical,” I mean the standard laptop and desktop configurations, and the impulse to purchase them new from the usual-suspect retailers. It’s worth being a little more circumspect than just grabbing whatever newer models happen to be on the shelf at Office Depot at the moment.

One reason for this is that, in most cases, writers don’t really need all that much computing power. A latest-thing PC is generally going to be overkill if its main function will be to run Word and ancillary software. That opens up the field a bit when one is looking for a new (to you) writing machine.

In the next few posts, I’d like to offer a few ways to think just beyond the usual knee-jerk considerations.

Idea One: Consider Refurbished Equipment.

Since writing and editing don’t require anything near the computing power of jobs that involve, say, massive number-crunching or video editing, the latest cutting-edge specs may well be overkill. At the same time, new equipment in the lower-end price ranges might not be adequate for professional purposes, since manufacturers that provide inventory for big-box retailers often cut many corners, especially in terms of build quality, to attain those lower price points.

One solution is to look at equipment that was state-of-the-art a few years ago. Many corporations lease “fleets” of business-class machines and routinely replace them every 2-3 years. The units that come off lease are then often purchased by companies that refurbish and re-sell them through retailers such as newegg.com. Purchasing such a unit gets the job done, saves no small amount of coin, and helps combat the growing problem of e-waste in our culture of planned obsolescence.

As a case in point, my current go-to PC for writing and editing is a first-generation Lenovo X1 Yoga that sold for well over $1500 when it was brand new in 2016. I’ve used mine since purchasing it as a refurbished unit in the summer of 2022 for around $400 (plus an extra $30 for a brand-new battery). It’s been able to handle everything I’ve thrown at it as a writer and editor, and then some. The build quality, too, is what one would expect from a high-end business-class PC. The only thing I really can’t do with it is play certain newer and graphically-intensive games, which is no skin off my back as my taste in computer games tends to lean retro in any case.

Depending on your particular needs as a writer, too, there are ways of spending even less money than I did, specifically by going through nonprofit organizations that specialize in recycling e-waste into usable (if lower-end) machines for very low cost indeed. For example, one organization in my region, freegeek is a nonprofit that takes in most recyclable electronics for free, uses recycled components and volunteers to produce inventories for both brick-and-mortar and online stores, provides extremely low- or no-cost computers for low-income families, and even provides training courses. Purchasing from their online and physical stores, of course, funds their work to make low-cost but reliable computers available to everyone. It’s really a win for everyone: average users can purchase a desktop or laptop machine well-suited to most everyday tasks for under $200, the organization makes a sizable dent in the amount of e-waste going into landfills, and many low-income folks gain access to the computers everyone needs to get along in our digital world.

My next computer purchase will probably be a desktop computer or server from Freegeek, for use as a backup computer, an NAS server (a way of providing one’s own “cloud” file storage service), and—for a little after-hours amusement—a Minecraft server for family and friends (we’re still a bit obsessed with that game around here).

What are your experiences with purchasing and using refurbished equipment? If you’re a writer, what software do you find yourself needing to use, professionally, and what kinds of hardware requirements do you find you need in order to run that software efficiently? I’d love to hear your thoughts about these questions in the comments.