Writing on a laptop is efficient. It makes you look the part in a coffee shop. Its such an efficient tool I always found it difficult to separate the writing and editing process - it was so tempting to do both.
Write a sentence, read it, change it, write it again, read it, change some more - thirty minutes have gone by and I’ve got maybe a paragraph.
So I decided to slowly, but intentionally, write my first draft by hand - the theory being, once its down, it cant really be changed. Some scribbles here, and a few arrows saying ‘move there’, but what I found after writing by hand is, it moves everything forward. It keeps you writing, not editing. And after getting away from a screen each writing session, it was enjoyable.
Enjoyable progress - doesnt that make it efficient?
And I wanted to share, it worked! Draft one has been completed and now Im ready to type up, tidy up and add more detail.
And the best thing about a physical first draft is, if the book fails…
…I can always bury it in the garden, hope someone digs it up in 100 years and attributes some historical value to it as a curiosity.