Hey there! I'm not sure I have a universally applicable answer, but I can do my best to map out some things about my process and flow that hopefully help a bit and answer your question.
- I've had an iPhone for half my life (I'm 36 and got one when I was 19), so I've gotten pretty acclimated to typing on the go. I try switching to dictation every couple of months but the iPhone's dictation trips up over enough words that I find it more frustrating than typing as I walk.
- I don't do this but if you're worried about the thoughts disappearing I would absolutely recommend recording a voice note. As I'll touch on in a moment — do not let those thoughts disappear! Even the act of codifying them into something tangible allows you to process them more deeply.
- I live in NYC but I start most mornings by taking a walk along a relatively quiet street, so I rarely end up having to worry about bumping into someone. That is definitely not universally applicable advice. (:
- I look up as I'm typing and let autocorrect take the wheel. That works at least 95% of the time, so if I make the occasional typo it doesn't really matter, I'll just fix it in post.
- It helps to have an app with a great text editing experience. I've found that there are very few out there that are fluid, many have incredibly subtle hitches that make it hard to quickly jot down thoughts onto a canvas. I really love Craft (https://craft.do) and have been using it for years, so at this point it feels more like an extension of me than an app.
- This is surely unique to everyone but my writing tends to start from a few keystone thoughts. Once I have one written down, I let myself almost free associate, writing down whatever comes to mind from that initial thought to make sure I do not forget. I can always edit after the fact, and often the editing process leads to more interesting insights as well. But the main thing I want to avoid is losing those sparks, in the same way that you're mention your thoughts evaporating. Don't let those go, just get 'em on paper and sort through 'em afterwards.
- That's all a lot easier to do on my phone than if I approached the problem as "type an essay on my phone", so I'll almost always edit a post on my computer before publishing. Yesterday was more of an exception than the rule though because I was bouncing around between doctors all day, so I wrote all of this on my phone [not expecting it to blow up or get a ton of scrutiny].
Not sure if anything's missing but I'm happy to share anything that may be helpful! Clearly this post wasn't perfect, but I've been much happier since I started letting myself write out long-form thoughts on my phone and sharing them as blog post rather than firing them off as pithy tweets that decay into the ether once the algorithm says it's time for them to go.
