Practical Conlanging

It was wondering how other conglangers actually go about writing material in
their
languages. My personal method is that I usually carry 3 x 5  notecards in my
pocket with a red pen and a blue or black pen. When a conlanging impulse
strikes me, I write
a short text in blue or black ink on alternate lines of the card, followed by
an interlinear gloss in English on the lines below each line of the conlang
text.  Often, a series of cards is gradually composed  on the same theme, and
then these are assembled and rewritten on larger sheets of lined notebook
paper, forming a larger text.  Some of these
have in turn been combined into still larger groupings.  The largest so far
(the Dizilali)
runs to 80 small notebook pages.  Once these are assembled, I type them up
into the computer. Lately, I have been copying single cards directly into the
computer  instead of combining them by hand. The method just described only
really works for languages
for which I carry a substantial vocabulary in my head--at the moment
Rihana-ye and formerly Natece and Hos Tir Yob (Zatona-ye). For languages I know less
well,  such as Jases Lalal (Hemana-ye) and Sawelendere, I compose in pencil
because I often need to make major corrections (especially word order in Jases
Lalal since I recently adopted a new word order), and I can write only very
brief pievces without access to my main vocabulary lists.  So rather than
composing anywhere as I can with Rihana-ye, I usually compose texts in Jases Lalal or
Sawelendere on larger pieces of paper in pencil while I have access to my
vocabulary lists. I think of Rihana-ye as a language in which I have oral fluency,
and others as the equivalent of languages I can only read or write with the
help of a dictionary. I do sometimes create Rihana-ye material purely orally,
e.g.improvising songs in Rihana-ye in the shower.
As I said, I was wondering how this compared to other conlangers.I have an
impression many on this list may compose directly onto the computer, but I do
not know.
John Leland

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