lack-of-computer update, thoughts on longhand

[edenfalling]

I have a new Geek Squad appointment for 8:15am on Friday.

This one had better work out.

...

I think I might try writing fic longhand tonight, just for kicks. I've actually never written much in longhand. Even when I was writing godawful original fiction in elementary school, I used a computer -- we had this crazy old school Atari 800 with the CPU in the keyboard and a separate floppy disk drive that could only run one program at a time, and to switch programs you had to turn off the computer, put in a new floppy disk (and sometimes a cartridge as well), and then restart the whole thing. I taught myself to touch type when I was about 10 or 11 because I was so sick of not being able to keep up with my own thoughts.

I will often start a story in longhand, if an idea hits me at 2am in the morning, or somewhere away from a computer, but I don't usually write more than 100-1000 words before I type it up. The only thing I regularly write longhand all the way is poetry.

Come to think of it, I haven't written any poems for about two years now. That is very odd; I used to write at least one every two to six months.

Stupid prose, absorbing all my creative efforts. *grin*

Comments

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

I remember writing about 2,000 words of my NaNoWriMo project (from 2004) in longhand when we traveled to Illinois for Thanksgiving. I think I spent about 4 hours writing during that trip - and I somehow left the notebook at Mr. A's cousin's house. I had to call them and ask them to overnight it to me so I could count the words at the end of November. Oy. Damn story still isn't finished *headdesk*

[edenfalling]

Writing longhand takes so much time compared to typing. On the other hand, I do like my little yellow notepads; they're nice for trying out an idea for a couple hundred words and seeing how it stands up to the world outside my head. And I can take them anywhere, unlike my computer. :-)

[valles-uf.livejournal.com]

Personally I find that doing my first draft/composition longhand makes it easier to sustain output throughout a writing session. Taking longer to write a given passage or sentence means that my mind has time to range ahead of that phrase, leaving more material ready to be put down when the time comes rather than having to stop and start to let my head get a little ahead of my fingers.

Of course, the downside is that I have to remember and find the energy to go back and type up everything I've written for proofing and posting. I think I must have something like 30-40 thousand words worth waiting in my notebooks...

Anyway. I recommend longhand writing, particularly for bits that are producing inconvenient blocks.

[edenfalling]

The thing is, I don't mentally 'write' ahead of the sentence I'm currently putting down on the screen (or on paper). That's because I won't know what comes next until I've written what comes now. Also, I edit as I write -- I rearrange sentences and paragraphs almost as soon as they hit the screen, because my first attempts are often wrong or awkward for one reason or another -- and that's a pain to deal with in longhand.

I particularly don't like writing longhand because if I give myself time to think about what I'm doing, the whole story tends to start feeling like crap in my head, and that's not a good state of mind to be in when trying to write it for other people to eventually read! If I'm using a word processor, I have a much better chance of keeping ahead of my self-doubt.

And finally, reading my own cursive gives me a headache after a few minutes... but writing in print takes just that much longer than cursive, and gives me writer's cramp just that much sooner, so I write longhand prose in cursive. And then I have to decipher it.

The only type of writing where I regularly work ahead of the current line is poetry, which, as I said before, I do write longhand. And in print. Because there, I am deliberately slowing myself down so I can think. When writing prose, I am trying not to think; I've done my thinking in the mulling and outline phase, and when I'm actually writing, the trick is to run as fast as I can so I don't stop and get second thoughts.