When Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin published the first installment of his iconic series in 1996, the Disk Operating System he used was already considered outdated. It is not surprising that the author’s declaration that he still uses a DOS to write garnered much attention and gave rise to the question of how helpful technology is to the creative process. Martin explained his persistent use of DOS and Wordstar in a recent appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, where he told Conan he has two computers, one to write on and the other to surf the net, pay taxes, and get emails on.

“I actually like [Wordstar 4.0]: It does everything I want a word-processing program to do, and it doesn’t do anything else.” Martin is referring to the absence of features such as spell check and autocorrect. Given the unusual names of his characters and settings, it makes sense that a feature such as spell check would cause some frustration. “If I’d wanted a capital, I’d have typed a capital,” he said. “I know how to work the shift key. Stop fixing it.”

Martin also divulged that he personally didn’t use Facebook or Twitter, allowing a friend to post on the sites for him. It is without question that the tools technology provides have become commonplace in the world of word processing and research, but Martin’s process raises the question of whether they actually help or hinder the creative process.

Source: BBC