… or just writers … of any kind. Writers of fiction, non-fiction, text based games, political pamphlets, philosophical tractates, you name it …

What’s the worst thing happening to you?

Yes. Distractions. 😦 And it’s worse when it’s your own typing tool that distracts you from writing, that keeps you on your toes with countless formatting and layout extra doodats n stuff and shit. Real writers don’t need that, don’t even want that! I even know many writers who are doing their first drafts pen on paper! Pen. on. Paper. Let me repeat that … very slowly … and very prononciated … for more impact: PEN! ON! PAPER!

Please, guys, it’s the year a.d. 2018, we’re not contemporaries of poor ole Shakespear! Use your computers to write, ffs! Or computer-esque typing tools.

Like the Freetype:

This is basically a mechanical keyboard (Cherry MX switches!), so wonderful writing ergonomy is a given. And itsy bitsy little e-ink screen so its batteries will last for friggin’ ever. And its minute processor is powered by Linux … what else, really. Sounds good, right?

In short it’s a very dedicated one-trick pony. It does one – and only one – thing, and it does it very well.

You use the Freewrite to produce lead deserts, huge amounts of texts with no photos or other illustrations. These are for optional drafts later down the line. This is the extent of the Freewrite’s formatting and edit options, this is all it can do … and it is enough. For all plain text workers this is perfect.

And, very important: The Freewrite won’t store your files somewhere on the cloud but locally. Directly on your device, where you want and need your texts to be.

Well, the Freewrite cost you the not-small amount of 500 $$$, so it’s not really a bargain. But then on the other hand it features a mechanical keyboard, is small and sturdy and you can take this device on the road for weeks without thinking about charging. So it’s the concept and the usefulness of the Freewrite, rather than its hardware, you’re paying for.

Watchy Bryan Lunduke’s review of the Freewrite:

Is this for me, can I recommend it?

Well, yes … but then NO! Really not. Firstly I’m an economical girl, I can think of far more usefull shit to sink 500 Dollars in. Secondly I’m not a writer anymore. Well, I produce texts, for example this here, but blogging is very different from writing The Novel Of The 21st Century. I illustrate and edit my blogposts on the go, all at once. Most of my stuff is centered on images in the first place. And thirdly it’s a fukn blog ffs! This thing lives online and I’ll be damned if I go hiding in my ivory tower and write my blogposts pen on paper, then transfer them onto my computer, then collect photos, and only then go online and publish it all. No blogger does that! And if I really need a distractionless writing tool, well, I’m a blessed user of Linux and can find a handful of such software tools in my repository.

When otoh you’re a real writer, working on the literal Novel Of The 21st Century, then, yes, you should indeed be thinking about utilizing the Freewrite for your work. I know I’d do it in a heartbeat.

But the machine had a subtler effect on his work. One of Nietzsche’s friends, a composer, noticed a change in the style of his writing. His already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic. “Perhaps you will through this instrument even take to a new idiom,” the friend wrote in a letter, noting that, in his own work, his “‘thoughts’ in music and language often depend on the quality of pen and paper.”

“You are right,” Nietzsche replied, “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” Under the sway of the machine, writes the German media scholar Friedrich A. Kittler , Nietzsche’s prose ‘changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.’

And I just noted, while I was searching for this quote, the Freewrite ain’t entirely new or revolutionary. It was known as the Hemingwrite already a couple years back. 😮

You know every couple years some smalltime startup hardware producer is coming up with similar devices, pure distractionless writing tools, which are made for nothing else but writing. Of all those so far the Freewrite seems to be the most convincing.

Hey Luna, would the Freewrite be something for you? I know Nietzsche would use it in a heartbeat. But what did he know about shit?