You know those huge novels that George R.R. Martin writes? He does it on a computer almost as medieval as the characters he is constantly murdering.
The massive tomes that author George R.R. Martin creates to tell the story of Westeros and the various families in Game of Thrones obviously takes a lot of time. But unlike many authors who prefer modern technology for spellcheck, grammar help, filing and email, Martin prefers things old-fashioned, like one step above a typewriter old-fashioned.
In talking to Conan O’Brien on Conan, Martin said he has a computer to do his taxes, browse the Internet and read email, but for writing he has a “secret weapon” to avoid computer viruses that could destroy all his work.
“It is a DOS machine, not connected to the Internet. You remember DOS, right?” he said. “I use WordStar 4.0 as my word processing system.”
Martin explained that newer programs frustrate him. “I don’t want any help. I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower case letter and it becomes a capital. I don’t want a capital. If I had wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital.” He also has issues with spellcheck, which of course led to a slightly different rant.
So the next time you pick up any of the Game of Thrones books, remember that any odd spellings or apparent stray capital letters you see are just the way George R.R. Martin wanted it.
Source: Team Coco
Published: May 14, 2014 04:27 pm