Sticky Notes Blog

A blog of writing news, tips, and inspiration from Fat Plum

"All the serifs come out dancing"

When you're supposed to be writing, do you procrastinate by changing the font you write with? You're not alone. Check out this fun article in Slate, in which authors discuss the fonts they prefer when they're writing: "My Favorite Font"

I discovered this article by way of the lovely and creative India Amos, who adds her own thoughts on fonts to write with ("Choosy Writers Choose Courier"):

There’s a strong preference for Courier, which I happen to think is a good idea. Keeps the writer from getting to hung up on presentation. When I worked on the PEN literary journal, I’d format files in Courier for the staff, but in Times New Roman for the editor in chief. The book was then set in very small Adobe Caslon, and we’d find another round of typos on that version—you see different kinds of errors every time you change the typeface.

I write in Courier too. In fact, you can't tell but I'm writing in Courier right now....

The blog software we use for Sticky Notes is quite outdated, so the editor isn't WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) -- that is, we write in plain text (which happens to be Courier) and mark it up with formatting tags. Very old school! I don't mind much, but poor Judy and Julie have had to learn some basic HTML just to be able to post.

The version of MovableType that I use for my personal blog, My Brilliant Mistakes, is even more outdated. For very long posts, and especially for posts with photos and lots of links (which is most of them), I write in the software I use to create web pages, then switch to the code view and copy the marked-up copy, then paste it into the blog-writing window.

It's an extremely clunky process, and I confess that it makes me hesitate before writing a post. Then again, the slowness of it also forces me to re-read each post several times. I always catch a few typos and poorly worded sentences, or bits that don't quite convey what I meant. So blogging is slower, but the end result is, I think, a little better written.

In contrast, my blog at Big Big Design uses a more up-to-date program. I can format on the fly and make it look pretty as I go. I find that this makes me quick to post. When I re-read what's online, I often want to change it ... which means reposting within minutes of the first post, which is bad for a variety of geeky reasons.

Then again, it also means that posting at Big Big Design is a little easier, and easier means I'm more likely to actually write. A blog isn't supposed to be perfect anyway, so maybe the pretty-looking ramshackle writing I do on that blog is perfectly fine for its purposes.

Posted by Cindy on May 27, 2007
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