I like to make comments on a manuscript with pen and paper, with the classic three-ring binder my preferred format. It gives me room to write long notes on blank paper, make marginal and interlineal notes, and draw frowny faces and multiple exclamation points for really bad writing.
Don't judge me until you've walked a mile in my word processor.
This system works well: notes in longhand, typing in edits and changes on the computer. The one time it doesn't work is when I'm trying to edit a manuscript on an airplane. In general, airplanes are great places to write; they present an atmosphere of monastic isolation for hours and hours on end.
However, while a paper notebook, iPad or small laptop will fit on an airplane fold-down tray, it's too narrow to accommodate my binder when it's open. I've wrestled with this for a while, without success.
Until now.
Presented above is my solution for using a three-ring binder on an airplane fold-down tray. With this one change, the binder fits perfectly. Both sides are squarely on the tray, so I'm neither causing it to flop off the right edge when I write notes, nor am I sticking the left side into my seatmate's drink. For editing anywhere else, e.g. at a desk or table, it functions as a standard binder. Plus, the front cover remains long enough to keep the pages from getting dog-eared when the binder is closed.
As a black-on-white, pocket-knife-and-duct-tape modification, it's a hack in the Brutalist style, but the function-over-form aesthetic appeals to me. You Pinterest types are free do the same thing with precision-cut X-acto knives and color-coordinated tape.
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
Don't judge me until you've walked a mile in my word processor.
This system works well: notes in longhand, typing in edits and changes on the computer. The one time it doesn't work is when I'm trying to edit a manuscript on an airplane. In general, airplanes are great places to write; they present an atmosphere of monastic isolation for hours and hours on end.
However, while a paper notebook, iPad or small laptop will fit on an airplane fold-down tray, it's too narrow to accommodate my binder when it's open. I've wrestled with this for a while, without success.
Until now.
Presented above is my solution for using a three-ring binder on an airplane fold-down tray. With this one change, the binder fits perfectly. Both sides are squarely on the tray, so I'm neither causing it to flop off the right edge when I write notes, nor am I sticking the left side into my seatmate's drink. For editing anywhere else, e.g. at a desk or table, it functions as a standard binder. Plus, the front cover remains long enough to keep the pages from getting dog-eared when the binder is closed.
As a black-on-white, pocket-knife-and-duct-tape modification, it's a hack in the Brutalist style, but the function-over-form aesthetic appeals to me. You Pinterest types are free do the same thing with precision-cut X-acto knives and color-coordinated tape.
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
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