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Workspace: Michael Chabon

September 21, 2012 Workspace

michael chabon headshotWho are you and what do you write?
—

My name is [Michael Chabon](http://michaelchabon.com/) and mostly I write [fiction](http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Chabon/e/B00456TWZY). Five novels, a couple of novellas, short stories, essays. I have two screenwriting credits, for [Spider-Man 2](http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/spider-man2/) and for [John Carter](http://disney.go.com/johncarter/), and a lot of unproduced or uncredited work.

My latest novel, [TELEGRAPH AVENUE](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061493341/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0061493341&linkCode=as2&tag=johnaugustcom-20), is just out from HarperCollins.

Where and when do you write?
—-

I mostly work in a studio behind my house in Berkeley, California, at night, from 10 PM to 3 (or 4) AM.

My wife and I have four children, which means that frequently I feel compelled to flee for a few days, a week, occasionally as long as two weeks, to try to bear down and get deeply immersed. Immersion in a project, in a house with four children, is all but unattainable.

What software do you use?
—-

workspaceStarted out in 1983, using [WordStar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar) on an [Osborne 1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1). Many gray years of Word. Tried what feels like dozens before settling down in recent years with [Scrivener](http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php) and [Final Draft](http://www.finaldraft.com/), making occasional resort to [Pages](http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/).

But now I am in love with [iA Writer](http://www.iawriter.com/). Its beauty and simplicity, its tight cloud integration, and its device agnosticism have me rapt. I used Writer to write an entire [essay about Finnegans Wake](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/what-make-finnegans-wake/?pagination=false) on my iPad (and even, sitting at the DMV and the orthodontist, my iPhone).

Lately I have been moving, for screenwriting work, to Writer/[Fountain](http://fountain.io/)/[Highland](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/).

What hardware do you use?
—-

MacBook Pro, iMac, iPad, iPhone.

What (if anything) would you change?
—-

I wish Scrivener had better cloud integration, and was spread beautifully across platforms the way Writer is. Writer is a sharp tool, but Scrivener is still, by far, the best app for organizing all the pieces of a big project like a novel.

Related Posts

  1. Writing screenplays with Scrivener and iA Writer
  2. Workspace: Beth Schacter
  3. Getting to page one

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