At the end of each work period, I send copies of my work to two or three different emails. When working on the penultimate draft, I print out the day's additions at the end of each work period. I once lost a chapter I spent eight solid hours writing. I immediately started reproducing as much of it as I could recall, which required eight more hours. I do not want to repeat that experience.
I do a fair amount of first draft writing by hand because notebooks are easier to pull out than computers when sitting in waiting rooms or in the car waiting to pick kids up from school. I think differently when I write in longhand, and sometimes that difference helps me work through a plot problem.
An exercise that always surprised my writing students was experimenting with writing materials beyond the computer. I supplied a range of writing implements, from crayons to paintbrushes to good pens, and a range of paper from sticky notes to 2'x3' pieces of newsprint. William Carlos Williams famously wrote on prescription pads during his workday as a doctor, but I never had any of those. Students did timed writing with different combinations of the same, followed by a discussion of how materials affected their thoughts and the ability to transfer those thoughts into written words. I don't recall a student saying he or she didn't notice a difference between crayons on lined notebook paper and fine tip pens on posterboard.
One woman discovered how much easier it was to write with a Pilot Precise rollerball pen than with a number 2 pencil. She had arthritis in her hands. She'd never realized how much friction was involved in writing in pencil, and announced she was done with pencil writing. I use a pencil when I need to slow down and think in careful detail.
Sorry for the sidetrack. Carry on.
