No writer wants to be told by a doctor (or anyone else) that they need to step away from the keyboard for any period of time, or, worse yet, that they require surgery on their wrists.
All the same, carpal tunnel syndrome remains a real and significant risk for writers.
That’s why, in this episode of The Writing Coach podcast, we discuss not only the importance of wrist health and good ergonomics for writers, but also several approaches to writing that don’t involve typing at a keyboard.
Listen to the full episode now or read the transcript below.
The Writing Coach Episode #127 Show Notes
Get Kevin’s FREE book: NOVEL ADVICE: MOTIVATION, INSPIRATION, AND CREATIVE WRITING TIPS FOR ASPIRING AUTHORS.
Books by Eric and Jen Desmarais:
The Writing Coach Episode #128 Transcript
Hello beloved listeners. And welcome back to the ready coach podcast. It is your host as always writing coach Kevin T Johns here. I have got health on the mind. I have got wrist health, elbow health, and finger health in the mind. These are things that are essential to writers. If your fingers aren’t feeling good, you are in big trouble. Now, one of the reasons this is on my mind is because a local writer here in Ottawa, where I live, a friend of mine, Eric Desmarais recently posted on Facebook that he’s been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. Now he’s a prolific author. He writes a ton and co-writes books with his partner and the idea of him not being able to write for a period of time. I was just, oh man, my heart went out to him. I know how passionate an author. He is.
I’ll link to some of his books in the show notes for this episode, head on over to www.kevintjohns.com. This is episode 128 of the writing coach podcast. And I’ll have some links to Eric’s books in there. Maybe you can go pick up a copy or two of his books to help him out while he’s down and out with carpal tunnel syndrome. But just thinking about what that was going to be like for him. I mean, my heart went out for him. It went out to him. It it’s as a writer. It’s no fun having someone tell you, you can’t write. And so what I want to talk about today is some alternatives to typing on a keyboard. I think so much these days, people think all writing needs to be done sitting at a computer, typing into a keyboard. And of course that’s only the way things have been written for like the last 30 years.
<Laugh> for the rest of the 20th century, all the books you love were being written on typewriters. And then for hundreds of years before that Quill ink paper, you do not have to always be sitting at a computer to write. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Now, my first experience with this idea of carpal tunnel syndrome, this idea of repetitive use injuries from working at a computer was actually my mother, my mother was an executive at a telecom business long before computers were a popular modern thing. My mother was working on them as long as I could remember. She was always working on computers. And in my early teens, I remember she was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, and she had to get surgery. You know, she went in and she, she got surgery on both of her wrists.
And so I was made aware of this perhaps earlier on in life than some people are, but it was certainly on my mind. And so when I did my masters in English literature, it was a 12-month program, which meant I did my courses during the year, my coursework, and then wrote a thesis really quickly, just over the summer. And so during that summer of my masters, I was writing a ton. I was writing all day, every day, shortly after graduating, I got a job with the Canadian federal government working on correspondence letters in the government — so writing again, And because I’d finished school because I then had a job, I had begun work on my first novel as well. And so, at that time in my life, I was writing constantly and a lot over a short period of time. And I started experiencing some problems, wrist problems, elbow problems, things not feeling great.
And so, luckily, I had seen my mother’s experience, and I was like, I don’t want to have to get surgery. I don’t want to be in pain when I do my work. And so I was really serious about getting good ergonomic setups at my day job at the government and at home. And that has continued, you know, for almost two decades. Now I’m very serious about my ergonomics and the ergonomics of my clients as well. We are like in, in the same way, an athlete they’re they rely on their body to make their living well. My clients rely on their fingers and wrists and elbows and brains obviously to create their writing and create their art. And so proper ergonomics is really important to me. A simple tip that you might want to think about is when I started having those problems at my day job, I switched to a left-handed mouse.
And so what this meant was while at work, I was using a left-handed mouse and, at home, I was using a right-handed mouse, and I’m not ambidextrous, but after a week or two, I got really good at using my left hand. And I never thought about it again. And for, you know, decades or, well, not decades, many years working for the government. I used that left-handed mouse and never thought twice of it, but it at least made both arms, do a little work with the mouse instead of it always being my right hand. So that’s something you might want to think about maybe on some of the computers you work on, use the right-handed mouse, and in some of the computers you work on, use the lefthanded mouse, just give your dominant arm a break from time to time. Now let’s get into some other tips, some other ways that you can do writing without actually having to type on a keyboard.
And this isn’t just a preventative measure to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome. And it isn’t just for people who have maybe been diagnosed with it and, and are suffering from pain and are unable to type for a period of time. I think it’s also just a great way sometimes to get new perspectives on your writing when I’m working with a coaching client and they’re really blocked, they’re really having trouble getting words down or getting through a certain scene. I’ll often say to them, are you working on a computer? And they’ll say, yeah, and I’ll say, stop it, attack this scene in a notebook with a pen or do it. Some of the other ways we’re going to talk about here. We don’t always have to be going back to that keyboard and typing away. So perhaps there I’ve already given away one way that you can do writing without having to type.
And this is the way I write my first drafts of everything. It’s with a pen and paper. It’s how writers have been writing for hundreds and hundreds of years, using ink on paper. And I really feel like writing first drafts of things in pen and paper allows me freedom. I feel like I can make mistakes. I can scribble things out. I can draw pictures. It doesn’t have that austerity of typing into a computer. And so I find it supports my creativity. And what I also find is when I eventually type it up on the word processor, I inevitably make little tweaks along the way. And so it’s a new draft when it goes into the computer, but it doesn’t feel like a new draft. It feels like a free draft. Like I’ve made revisions without the stress of revisions. So I’m always encouraging people to pick up a pen and just do some writing.
The way people have been writing, probably, since cavemen picked up sticks and wrote on the wall with coal or whatever. I mean, long before there was typewriter or word processors we were writing. And so give that an experiment. Don’t forget about pens and paper. They are a writer’s best friend and when the internet goes down and when there’s no power, there’s still nothing stopping you from being able to write. Now we do live in a pretty amazing age technologically. So if you do want to get into the world of tech, voice to tech software is incredible and only getting better. This is something I use for emails a lot. I don’t tackle too much long form writing in this manner, but most of the emails I respond to these days and certainly text messages are just me using the voice to text software on my phone.
I talk into my phone, I say, Hey, great to hear from you. Yep. We’re still on for our coaching call this Thursday, see you then period, send it off again. It gives my arms a little break. My fingers, a little break, avoid that carpal tunnel syndrome while still getting work done while still communicating with people. And that voice to text software is only going to get better as the years go by another service. Another technology that I do use a ton is voice recording to transcription services. So last year or the year before I started having every episode of this podcast transcribed, and it’s so easy, I record the podcast. I upload it to a website called rev.com. They charge you 25 cents a minute, I think for an AI to transcribe the audio. And you know, it’s not perfect. It’s bad at times it’s like maybe 75 to 80% accurate, but I love it for a transcription for a podcast.
It’s great. You know, I pay seven or eight bucks for a 20 minute podcast and I’ve got a transcript and people can read over that in addition to listening to the podcast or perhaps instead of listening to the podcast, just more ways to get ideas out there into the world. And this is also a approach. I used a ton in my ghost writing. Most of the books I ghost wrote, I interviewed the author extensively for normally, maybe 10 to 12 hours of interviews. And then I would have those interviews transcribed. And that would be the beginning of the book. And like I said, I’m not an affiliate for rev.com or anything like that. I don’t even know what other services are out there, but I’ve been using rev for years. And it is just so easy. So incredibly quick, when you use the artificial intelligence, it’s like five minutes and they have a transcript for you.
And as I said, it it’s fairly accurate and fairly affordable. And so if you are unable to type, really consider just using a voice recorder of any kind, an app, something on your phone, and then just getting it transcribed can be a great way to get a first draft of things done and to get your ideas out of your head and onto the page. That’s what this is all about. Now, something else to think about, if you happen to be in the unique situation where someone is willing to scribe for you, that’s always an option as well. Going back in time, this was how tons of things were written. They say, there’s a story. I think about Thomas Aquinas. They say that he used to have three scribes working for him, and he’d be narrating three different books on three different topics to the three different scribes all at the same time.
So he’d give one scribe, you know, a couple of sentences to write, then you’d go to the next one. And the next one, you know, I don’t know if this is true or not, but I mean, it makes Thomas Aquinas sound pretty awesome. It also shows kind of a productivity hack even back in antiquity. Another story I love is John Dunn’s Devotions. This is a very famous poem written by John Dunn when he was very ill, lots of famous phrases in it that we’re still using today for whom the bell tolls is from that poem. No man is an island onto himself is from that poem. So something written hundreds of years ago that still resonates in modern culture. It was not typed into a keyboard. It was not typed into a typewriter. John Dunn did not even pick up a Quill and write it himself.
He was extremely ill, laying in bed on his death bed, speaking it out loud, and a scribe was writing it down for him. So if you have a wife, if you have a husband, if you have a child, a friend, you know, there might be someone out there who’s willing to write down the words that you’re saying, you know, I’m not saying this is a practical hack for writing 21st-century books quicker. But what I’m saying is writing is the capturing of words. And that does not have to be you at a keyboard, destroying your wrists and elbows and fingers. Take care of yourself, take care of your body ergonomics matter and mixing it up a bit sometimes can be really great for both your body, but also for your mind. And so think about some of these techniques that we talked about in this episode and, and consider experimenting with them or working them into your writing habit.
I have a fantastic group coaching program going on right now. A couple of them, in fact. If you’re working on your first draft, you should really reach out to me, and ask me about my First Draft group coaching program. We’ve got an incredible group in there, and it’s an ongoing program. We’d love to have you join us and get your first draft written in six months or less, and have an incredibly fun and productive time doing it. If you are done that first draft and you’re in the revisions phase, reach out to me about my Final Draft program. And I will let you know what we’re doing in there in terms of supporting the revisions process and getting books to the publication stage.
If you want to check out a free book, if you want to get on my mailing list, head on over to Kevin T johns.com. There is a link at the top that says free book. There should be a popup as well. Put your email address in there and you can get a free copy of my book, novel advice, inspiration, motivation, and creative writing tips for aspiring authors. It is a book for people just like you.
All right, my friends, that is it for this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I will see you on the next episode of the writing.
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