A VC - Latest Comments in My Quill Pen

Re: My Quill Pen

pauljacobson — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:39:46 -0000

This idea of a personal digital device becoming a "quill pen" really appeals to me. I have this sense of an advanced device taking the place of old world devices and yet being able to retain that sense of meaning and purpose. I don't know that devices are "there" yet but we're getting close.

Re: My Quill Pen

JK Wen — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:48:06 -0000

Personally, I think going the complete opposite direction also makes for an interesting writing frame of mind. See Debbie Weil's post on writing with a fountain pen.

Re: My Quill Pen

Brian Paul — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:02:39 -0000

"I don't really know why writing on a blackberry brings out this side of me but it does. It could be the lack of distraction (hard to multi-task on a blackberry), it could be that I can't link out so I don't bother to be referential, or it could be something else entirely."

As someone who spends double-digit hours per day at the keyboard, the speed at which I type is considerable. This creates a very fast thought to medium cycle. I can get it all down, and quickly. This does not lend itself to considered writing. Be that prose, editorial, or correspondence, It's just too easy to 'dash something off.'

If I am careful to edit viciously I can still produce something of an order of magnitude or more higher in quality.

If I sit down with pen and paper I have to slow down a bit and I find that I spend more time early in the process. Thus, less editing is necessary. Forgoing editing, I still have a better outcome.

Do you think that the extra time it takes you to work with the smaller keyboard on your blackberry gives you more opportunity to construct your writing?

Re: My Quill Pen

fredwilson — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:24:07 -0000

I use a curve and use the email posting service. I've tried the mobile web interface but I like email better. It feels more 'native' on the blackberry

I don't embed links when I post via bberry. I try to go back and add them later

Re: My Quill Pen

sippey — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:31:40 -0000

Absolutely. Anil keeps arguing that the right mobile combo is the Curve + an iPod Touch...

Re: My Quill Pen

fredwilson — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:53:10 -0000

He's right. I might glue them together! :)

Re: My Quill Pen

fredwilson — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:23:20 -0000

If carriers would let us run the phones we love on whatever networks we want, it would make more sense to have two phones one for composing (blackberry) and one for consuming (iphone)

Re: My Quill Pen

sippey — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:21:16 -0000

I love the posts you write from your Blackberry -- they have a different tone, and are well-thought out "letters" to your readers. And now this post is making me want to try a BB again -- I love my iPhone, but it really doesn't cut it for long stretches of typing...

Re: My Quill Pen

Dan Blank — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:08:05 -0000

You may want to read this piece from the New Yorker on novels being written on cell phones:

http://www.newyorker.com/re...

Re: My Quill Pen

Dan Blank — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:07:19 -0000

Great point about how you can focus on a single task when composing on a Blackberry - I too tend to multitask when on a full computer. Great post, and the comments are just fascinating to read on this one!

Re: My Quill Pen

Dell "D. C." Toedt III — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 16:11:58 -0000

When posting with your Blackberry, do you email the text to your secret Typepad address? Or do you use the Typepad Web interface and the Blackberry browser? Or is there some third option?

Is there anything special about how you insert links?

Which Blackberry model do you use?

Re: My Quill Pen

fredwilson — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 03:03:06 -0000

I was going there but stopped because we had a busy day planned. You've fast forwarded to my next post

Re: My Quill Pen

fredwilson — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 02:57:06 -0000

Nice!

Re: My Quill Pen

Jon Knight — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:57:53 -0000

As long as you keep writing, and keep publishing, I'm happy to be content and read.

I, too, used to have a pen fetish ( and a paper type fetish and when I was VERY young, even a location fetish). Without MY pen, I simply could not write. Gradually, the message of the words became more important to me than the method, and I finally was able to write anywhere, on anything, at any time.

Then I noticed that my writing sucked.

I went shopping for a pen - a cheap Parker like the one I used in my late teens. I don't use it, mind you... but it's right - over - there ->.

Re: My Quill Pen

Rex Hammock — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:52:36 -0000

These day, I find that I'm "living" in Evernotes as my thinking/scribling/note-taking is multimedia and multiplatform. I'd estimate that 99% of the words I write are with a keyboard. However, my favorite personal (as in, just for me) medium is a moleskine and fountain pen. Yes, FOUNTAIN pen. A few years ago, I was walking with a client down F Street in Washington DC and he said, "You've got to go into this store with me." It was a fountain pen store called Fahrney's. For kicks, I tried out a few of the pens priced over $500. For someone who has never used any writing instrument that didn't come from a package of 20, I was astounded with how the balanced weight of the pen and the subtle flow of the ink created a unique tactile experience that added gravity to the experience or writing. While I haven't become a pen "collector" and haven't spent any "big bucks" on a fountain pen yet, I do have three wonderful pens that I write the "special stuff" with. So, in an almost non-metaphoric way, a fountain pen is my quill.

Re: My Quill Pen

johndodds — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:54:30 -0000

It's just down to being on this side of the Atlantic.

Re: My Quill Pen

jonsteinberg — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:11:00 -0000

Nice piece. After reading the first few sentences, I thought you were going to argue that the online discussions are the second coming of the art and intensity of letter-writing that existed in the 19th century. I think we've returned to a culture of literacy because of technologies like the one I'm using right now...

Re: My Quill Pen

Scott — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:05:24 -0000

My macbook and wordpress admin panel have become my quill pen; still, though, I love the feeling of writing--which is why I asked for some Moleskine notebooks this x-mas... Some things just feel right :-)

Re: My Quill Pen

fredwilson — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:46:09 -0000

Its good to know I¹m not alone in this one

Re: My Quill Pen

awatterson — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:27:21 -0000

I type slower on the berry than on the laptop, so it also has the added advantage of making me choose my words and focus more on what I am typing. Keeps what I am writing more concise and on point. Two important features of good writing.

Re: My Quill Pen

Terry Heaton — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:13:22 -0000

I've found the same thing, Fred. For me, it's two things. One, my Blackberry is such a personal and private device that I get wrapped up in its intimacy, and that brings out all my thoughts. Two, it's like making notes to myself, instead of writing for an audience, and that, I think, makes a difference.

I do it so much that I'm actually having brain spasms with my laptop, because the punctuation isn't where it "should" be.

Re: My Quill Pen

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:14:13 -0000

you wouldnt be able to buy anything on that kindle in germany....the radio does not work there.

Re: My Quill Pen

fredwilson — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:31:14 -0000

I guess that makes me feel a bit better about not having one on this trip
but that¹s something amazon should fix

A big part of the appeal of the kindle to me is just in time book purchasing

Re: My Quill Pen

Rob Long — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:17:27 -0000

Due to my total inability to resist Apple's marketing, I bought an iPhone last summer -- I love it, of course -- but I miss the wonderful, tactile sense of writing something that I used to have with the Blackberry. Somehow, that physical action of thumbing out the keys just felt like writing to me, and like you, Fred, I could compose long emails without really thinking about it. I got myself out of the way of the writing process -- removed a little of the writing friction between thought and word -- and maybe that's why your recent posts via Blackberry have been so thoughtful and spontaneous....

It's the curse of the writer's temperament: you start to become a pen freak.

Another thought: a lot of us in the media business seem to take it for granted that people have always wanted to sit at home, after the workday is done, and watch something, get told a story. A lot of us (in Hollywood, anyway) tend to think this is some kind of natural human activity. But before movies and TV, for hundreds of years, people sat around at night and wrote letters, played music together, talked idly, played games -- they "connected" in a bunch of ways, both formal and casual. They didn't go to the theater every night. They just....hung out in a loosely structured way. I sometimes think of that when I see what people are doing now at night, online: emailing, IM'ing, online games, Guitar Hero --- what are these, really, but the same basic stuff they used to do in all of those Jane Austen novels? Writing letters, playing music, chatting, bridge, etc.?

So I guess what I mean is: maybe things aren't changing. Maybe they're changing back.

Re: My Quill Pen

Detlef Cordes — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 08:41:11 -0000

I agree. This "If" seems to be an unsolved problem presently - with lots of creative and business opportunities.