I’d love to be able to use a writer deck. Some sort of little distraction-free device built just for writing without the luring distractions posed by the rest of a computer. Something with a nice keyboard and pleasant screen – maybe e-ink?
Unfortunately, writer decks just don’t fit my needs. I can identify genuine value for creative writers, or people writing stories for the facts of which they already know, but that is very rarely me. Almost everything I write requires research, so I’m usually split between my writing buffer and a browser, and by the time a browser is introduced, the benefit of a writer deck is nullified.
In addition to traversing the World Wide Web for research, much of my writing is technical, so I find myself needing a way to write code and test it. That means I need to configure – and maintain – a development environment, and that whatever device I might use as a writer deck needs to be capable of performing these development tasks, ideally at such a speed that it doesn’t break my writing flow.
I’d love a writer deck, and it’d be fit for writing a novel or the likes, but for my needs I’m afraid it is impractical.