Ralph Henry Barbour: I don't think my imagination ever gets so far ahead of my means of recording that I lose ideas. As to those means I prefer a typewriter. I have never tried to dictate—to a stenographer. I don't believe that I'd like it. Or maybe the stenographer wouldn't. Anyway, I intend to keep on pounding it out myself.
Frederick Orin Bartlett: I use a typewriter and find that travels fast enough for me—as long as I don't worry particularly over what keys I hit.
Nalbro Bartley: No—I do all my stuff on a typewriter. I revise it personally—I make the final copy myself.
Konrad Bercovici: I never lose any ideas. I never begin to put them down until they are rounded out in my mind. One never loses anything except what he does not care to possess.
Ferdinand Berthoud: Yes, I do, but I mostly pick them up again unexpectedly, perhaps months afterward. Always write my draft in pencil, as it is easier to make instant alterations. Also the clicking and mechanism of a typewriter are liable to bring me suddenly back from out of my dream world.
H. H. Birney, Jr.: No; I don't think so. Story is pretty well outlined in my mind before I start writing. I personally write entirely with a fountain pen. Dislike the "scratching" of a pencil and the lack of permanency of penciled notes. Have tried doing my work direct from brain to typewriter, but find that the purely mechanical strain of using ten fingers, returning carriage, watching right-hand margins, etc., tends to hamper thought. Tried stenographer only once, so am not qualified to express opinion there.
Farnham Bishop: I always compose mentally before I begin to write. Conceived the plot of Malena while walking post, outlined the whole novel and held it in my head until I came off guard. Often come back from a walk with one or two long paragraphs composed and memorized, ready to be set down. I have held ideas and worked them over mentally for months and years, before writing a word on the subject.
That being the case, I almost never write except on my trusty Corona, H. & P. Method.
Algernon Blackwood: Imagination invariably travels faster than power of recording it. I use shorthand to jot down bits that flash ahead of the words I am actually typing at the moment. These flashes otherwise prove irrecoverable. With a stenographer beside me I could not think of a single sentence. I compose straight on to my own machine.
Max Bonter: Typewriter seems to afford me least check in recording thoughts. I write Pitmanic shorthand two hundred words a minute, but seldom use it in composition. In this case my hand is speedier than the flow of ideas. Moreover, ideas that would flow as fast as that would not seem to be reliable. Such a flow of bull would have to be edited very carefully afterward—so why be so precipitate? Better take it easier and pay more attention to logic than verbosity.