How I fell back in love with writing again

I had used iA writer on my iPad on the recommendation of Erik Spiekermann. I had always hated Word, Google Docs did some crazy shit with formatting and Pages had too many features for my liking. Then there was iA writer on my iPad where all I could do was write. It was brilliant - no fluff and great typography. I ended up making little ‘systems’ for basic formatting tat I picked up from looking at how other people wrote in plain text.

That’s when I came across Markdown. Maybe I ‘get it’ because I can code. I immediately identified with the way that there was only one way to have a heading. A universal formatting system. Amazing.

Then I noticed that iA writer for Mac was on sale. I bought it and started writing proposals at work in Markdown in iA writer. I feel like I’ve fallen in love with writing again. It just seems so natural and easy. I’m amazed at what a difference an application makes. Imagine if someone made Adobe CS the way that we all wish it was. Designers might actually be productive, instead of fighting with crash reports an inconsistent UI.

It’s rekindling my love of all the arts. I was out with a good friend, Johnny¹, who was talking to Chantal Powell² about books with such passion - much in the same way that I currently feel about writing - that I’ve downloaded the books and I’m just about to start 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. We were out at Wolverhampton Art Gallery for the private view of ‘The Fall of the Majestic Elk’³ and we came across an exhibition of ephemera from the Munich Olympic games. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been to an exhibition. Looking at art and design online just is not the same. It’s a priority for me now to get out more to see the great stuff that is out there.

The only feature I long for, is collaboration. I miss being able to share a document and get multiple users working on the same page. Maybe one day iA will craft a hosted version of writer.

This is my first post I’ve written in Markdown. It’s pointed out though that I need to re-theme this blog and make it a typographic dream.

Maybe now I’ll start to write the posts that I’ve always wanted to.