My Favourite Device for Distraction-free Writing
Tools of the trade
I have always had a bit of an obsession with gadgets; as a writer this manifests itself in various ways, mainly through the use of modish word-processing software and iPhone apps. I’ve never purchased a typewriter because I suspect the mechanics of the ribbon would get too annoying - a bit like the chain on my bike always getting tangled - but I admire the beauty of these machines very much. If I did ever buy a typewriter, I would probably type - romantically - with a lavender ribbon.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to share with you, dear reader, one of my favourite writing devices: the Alphasmart Neo.
What is this thing? I can’t even remember how I found out about the Neo in the first place - it was 2012 or earlier - but it’s an educational keyboard used in American schools to teach kids how to type. The company was founded in 1992 by three Apple Computer engineers, and the first Neo appeared on the market the following year. I use a Neo2 from around 2007, which can store eight separate text files - all of the models save every keystroke into the Neo’s memory, which in turn has a battery back-up, so it’s pretty robust. It also has a spell-check, although I never bother with it.
We have three Neos in our house and my husband, a classical music journalist, used to use it a lot for overnight reviews. After attending a concert or the opera, he would take his Neo to Pizza Express. As he put it: there’s no need to plug anything in, you just order your pizza, get a beer and get tapping until the food arrives. Back at home, he would transfer the text into his laptop and send it off to the editor. He used it a lot on trains and even took it abroad, however the latter proved inconvenient because it almost always got pulled out of his bag at Customs. As he found, it’s not easy to explain why you - a grown adult - are carrying a gigantic Speak & Spell that runs on three AA batteries.
How do I love thee, Neo? Let me count the ways.
It’s ridiculously light (0.82kg according to my kitchen scales), virtually indestructable and the size of a small shoulder-bag. It automatically saves backups so you don’t lose your work (well, I never have) and it has nothing to distract you because you can’t connect to the internet. In fact, this last benefit led to a flurry of interest in the Neo around 2018, when writers were getting sick of digital stimuli and wanted a quieter, simpler life. There has been a steady rise in ‘distraction-free writing devices’ such a Freewrite, but you could pay around $800 dollars for one of these.
The Neo’s screen is a little small and for that reason I use it for drafting. It’s very helpful if you can’t stop editing as you go along, since it’s tedious to scroll up and down the screen using the keys, so you end up simply writing and leaving the editing until later. When you’re ready to get your draft onto a computer, you open Word (or whatever you want to type into - Substack also works) and put the cursor in the desired place. Then you attach your Neo to the computer with a standard printer cable and press ‘Send’. The words just pour onto your computer as if The Invisible Man is your new writing buddy.
Theoretically, you could lie in the garden or in bed with it, although I never do for some reason. I bought my Neo on eBay and have little knowledge of what the market is like now, but a quick search shows there are models available for around £50 to £100.
Do you use any good writing or researching gadgets? If so, please let me know in the comments!
This is interesting - although it still looks roughly laptop-sized? I remember, way back, having a device (forgotten its name) by Hewlett Packard: it was about the size of a large pencil case, decent-sized screen, light (obviously); and would fit easily in a v. small bag (evening bag, included!). Sadly, in the way of tech, it lost the ability to communicate with other devices and systems. But I do wish someone would would come up with something similar, again - with built-in (or at least a bit more) longevity.
Since to Neo or Not to Neo seems to be the question this autumnal Sunday morning it set me thinking... hop to Lichfield, skip to Johnson & jump to Johnson on distraction... and so to here quoted, from whichever of the eight volumes of Johnson's (London, 1765) The Works William Shakespeare are his annotations on the great question
"To be, or not to be? Of this celebrated soliloquy, which bursting from a man distracted with contrariety of desires, and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather in the speaker’s mind, than on his tongue, I shall endeavour to discover the train, and to shew how one sentiment produces another. Hamlet, knowing himself injured in the most enormous and atrocious degree, and seeing no means of redress, but such as must expose him to the extremity of hazard, meditates on his situation in this manner: Before I can form any rational scheme of action under this pressure of distress, it is necessary to decide, whether, after our present state, we are to be or not to be. That is the question, which, as it shall be answered, will determine, whether ’tis nobler, and more suitable to the dignity of reason, to suffer the outrages of fortune patiently, or to take arms against them, and by opposing end them, though perhaps with the loss of life. If to die, were to sleep, no more, and by a sleep to end the miseries of our nature, such a sleep were devoutly to be wished; but if to sleep in death, be to dream, to retain our powers of sensibility, we must pause to consider, in that sleep of death what dreams may come. This consideration makes calamity so long endured; for who would bear the vexations of life which might be ended by a bare bodkin, but that he is afraid of something in unknown futurity? This fear it is that gives efficacy to conscience, which, by turning the mind upon this regard, chills the ardour of resolution, checks the vigour of enterprise, and makes the current of desire stagnate in inactivity."
Which discursion has served me well in opening a brief window of time in which to consider the overwhelming question which I have found placed before me this morning, to which I now say the answer is yes: Samuel Johnson would undoubtedly have been delighted to have had a Neo - bought on Ebay and delivered FedEx Express to his door from the future - to play about a bit with. Whether he'd have taken to using it regularly, well, that is quite another question.
Next time I happen to be passing the seated figure of Dr Johnson perched upon his statue plinth in the ancient marketplace of Lichfield I'll now be sure to look not once but twice... in half hoped expectation that there it will be, his Neo on his knee!