Aside from my mental weakness, one of the reasons I find writing for long periods so difficult (even with frequent breaks) is the physical discomfort I have to endure. My set up is, I imagine, pretty similar to most who use a PC/WP to write. A high-backed office chair, a desk, and a monitor directly in front of me, set at roughly face-height. But my list of aches and irritations are long. My elbows soon start to sting, because of their resting on the desk while typing, and chair arms while thinking. I started using two cushions to rest my arms on, but it doesn't really help. My back begins to ache, as do the backs of my thighs where they hang over the chair seat. My shoulder become knotted. I tire of these aches and pains so quickly it results in me spending more time away from the desk trying to recover, than sat there typing. Anyone else suffer with a similar barrier?
Have you tried voice-to-text? A program like Dragon NaturallySpeaking or similar could work. That way you could sit, stand, walk around, etc. while still writing (albeit not as fast as typing).
Laptop? Bluetooth keyboard or keyboard with a longer cable, so that you can sit in a squashy chair, make the font bigger on the monitor so that you can see it from further away, and write with the keyboard in your lap?
I haven't considered it, but in all honestly I don't think it's an option. I compose on the fly, so using a voice-to-text would result in endless bouts of silence. It's weird to think that while I can sit at a keyboard and compose sentence plucked directly from my imagination, I couldn't do the same by speaking it to a piece of software. It would seem utterly alien to me. Laptops frustrate me. Whenever I've tried to use one, they seem so awkward and cumbersome that I've ended up setting them up so they behave like a desktop, put them on desk, plug in a mouse... I just end up with a desktop PC but with a smaller screen. However, the long cabled / bluetooth keyboard is inspired! The idea of being slumped in a comfy armchair while I type is very appealing indeed. I need to find a way to get this set up! Thank you both for your suggestions.
I found that my desk is slightly too high for the chair I use. Not in the budget to buy one of those cool super-adjustable office chairs, but stacking a couple cushions under my backside puts me a the height I need to write comfortably. As for laptops, I find it very to get a good wrist/arm/elbow/shoulder alignment when the machine is actually on my lap, but YMMV.