Carl Clausen: Sometimes. Pencil.
Courtney Ryley Cooper: That depends also. I use every possible style of writing. I have started a story by pen, switched to pencil, gone to the typewriter and dictated the climax, the reason being this: I must write character slowly. I must do action as swiftly as it is possible for me to put it down. And when the action becomes too fast for my typewriter, I dictate. In other words, although it is bromidic, I know, I live my stories to a great extent. I personally go just as slow or as fast as the story itself—there are times when I can not write swiftly to save my life—because I am in a maze of slow characterization. Then again, I have to go like an express train to keep up with my story.
Arthur Crabb: To some extent, but not seriously. I sometimes have trouble in retaining ideas that come when I am off the job. Pencil.
Mary Stewart Cutting: No, as I said before, when I imagine anything, I write it down and so do not lose my ideas. A fountain pen in my hand greatly facilitates thought and expression.
Elmer Davis: Yes, but still worse because I sit around and think about the damn thing before I start writing at all, and most of the good stuff is gone by the time I drag out the old mill and get to work. Never tried anything but typewriter, though I have seen stenographers who would take a man's mind off the fleeting thought and the evanescent phrase.
William Harper Dean: No, I can keep up with my ideas, because I can write fast on a typewriter. I seldom leave it until the story is done in its first draft—an eight-thousand-word story will go down in the rough before I leave the machine. Then come the long careful hours of revision and rewriting, the thumbing of my Thesaurus. But I must get it down in black and white while I am hot with it—that's why I'll never write a book. I couldn't write a thousand words to-day and a thousand to-morrow. No, when I'm full of the thing it must be written.
Harris Dickson: No. I am an expert typewriter and stenographer, and have so few ideas that I can not afford to let one get away.
Captain Dingle: I can only write one way—typewriter—straight out from my imagination. Neither pen nor pencil helps, nor any amount of notes, except such as are necessary to avoid errors of date or place. Imagination seems to keep up. When it slows, I know it's time to clew-up for a spell.
Louis Dodge: If I get a good idea—conceding that I ever do—it never gets away from me permanently. It'll come back. But I get along better with a typewriter. It's easier, that's all.
Phyllis Duganne: I don't lose ideas because my imagination travels faster than my means of recording while I'm actually working. I can lose them through being interrupted before I've finished. A typewriter affords least check; it's almost impossible for me to write with a pencil. And my own typewriter is so well trained that it can write just about as fast as I can put my thoughts into words.