In his long essay “Can 'Distraction-Free' Devices Change the Way We Write?” in the December 20, 2021 issue of
NewYorker.com, its staffwriter Julian Lucas says he believed for a long time that his only hope of becoming a professional writer was to find the perfect digital tool. But now, a few months into his career as a book critic and after trying so many devices and strategems to multiply his writing productivity, he says despairingly that he has fallen victim to proscrastination while continuing “the search for word processing’s Excalibur, a perfect union of consciousness and composition.”
IMAGE CREDIT: NEWYORKER.COM ILLUSTRATION BY TIMO LENZENAfter trying so many writing apps and devices that he says leave us "ever more vulnerable to subscriptions, algorithms, proprietary formats, and arbitrary updates,” Lucas concludes: “A minor literary doctrine holds that great writing should be platform-independent. Let amateurs mess around with gadgets and gizmos; Wole Soyinka wrote 'The Man Died' in a Nigerian prison with Nescafé for ink and a chicken bone for a stylus. Yet the ability to write with anything and the drive to experiment with everything likewise reflect the fact that the means, no less than the matter of writing, should adapt to our selves and to our circumstances.”
Read Julian Lucas's “Can 'Distraction-Free' Devices Change the Way We Write?” now in the December 13, 2021 issue of NewYorker.com! RELATED READING IN THE FORUM:
"Aspiring writer in storm-ravaged town appeals for help" 
