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October 09, 2003
Neal Stephenson Talk
Neal Stephenson, author of the amazing Snow Crash and many other really good books was at the Harvard Coop last night to talk about his newest book, Quicksilver. His talk was only 45 minutes and I didn't stay around to wait through the long signing line but it was still well worth going to. He almost immediately went to Q&A with no reading and just a very quick introductory comment but he was absolutely wonderful about handling the Q&A. Even to some not very interesting questions, he managed to give very interesting answers that were absolutely on topic to the question. The most interesting answer he gave was over why he had chosen to switch to writing with a fountain pen rather than using a computer with this book. He feels that he produces a much better first draft by having a slower output method. Because he can't physically write so fast, sentences are forced to wait longer in his mind to be written and, while they are there, they are mentally edited to be better rather than just being blasted out on a keyboard. He also finds crossing stuff out on the page to be a bit easier than editing it on the computer. Finally, he does his own typing and, in the process, does another level of editing. The end result is that once he has a draft in the computer, although it will have taken longer, it will be a much more advanced draft and save him a lot of editing time later. He also finds that stuff typed in immediately achieves an unjustified status of permanence which makes it harder for him to edit so making the quality of this higher to start is very helpful. He is therefore intentionally introducing an inefficient method at one stage to increase the efficiency overall which I find fascinating (and very believable). Stephenson also recommended Matt Ruff's newest book which is nice as Matt is not nearly as well known an author and is writing excellent stuff.
Posted by aarondf at October 9, 2003 11:25 AM
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