BlogAuthor

Blog Swap With Cassandra Ulrich

2/20/2015

Promoting can be a real drag, so to spice things up a bit and break up the monotony, I sent out a post to some of the other Wild Child authors requesting blog-related support. I'm happy to say that Cassandra Ulrich, an author and poet, agreed to a blog swap. I haven't known Cassandra for very long, but I have read her young adult romance novel Love's Intensity. She's a talented author, and it's been a pleasure working with her on this blog swap.

Her guest post is her take on the question: What are the benefits of writing on paper VS the computer?

I smiled when I first read this question because I live this conflict on a daily basis when writing scenes for my stories. Considering how quickly the characters act out the scenes in my mind and the fact that I took a typing class in college, I find that the computer is the fastest way to go. Spelling or grammatical errors fly off the screen at me. Searches for details to ensure I’m staying on track takes only a few clicks. The first draft is ready for my beta readers a lot sooner too.

The problem is I don’t always have my computer with me. That’s when paper stands out as the better and only option. Even when I don’t have paper or pen on me, folks are more than willing to help out an author desperate to release the scenes onto a readable medium, so they can have a look. I’ve also discovered an added benefit. When I’m finally typing the scenes into the computer, my brain does an initial edit, making the newly typed-in scenes a kind of second draft. A major issue becomes finding all those sheets of paper so I could organize them into a coherent, properly developed plot. That’s when the real adventure begins.

Either way, my fingers are more than happy to participate in the transfer of stories from thoughts to the written word. Final verdict? Well, it depends on how desperate I am to keep the characters happily quiet while I tend to other matters. If I can stand the chatter, the computer is the way to go.