How do you write?
Admission: I cannot write with a pen or a pencil.
Gasp.
I imagine plenty of people can curl up with a brand new note pad and the perfect pen and write for hours – I on the otherhand get finger cramps and brain farts within minutes.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I love the click of the keys beneath my fingers as they fly over the keyboard. I like seeing what I’ve written in clearly legible writing on the screen and most of all, I like being able to DELETE and edit!
Now, I get me. I get my inability to write more than a paragraph by chickenscatch on a piece of paper and yet that doesn’t stop me from trying. Every September I run to the office supply store and stock up on the supplies the kids need for school, and invariably come home with new pads and pens for myself. WHY?
I bring a pad and pen everyday to work with me. WHY?
I sometimes sit and stare at the blank page and try to write. I do make little notes and cryptic snippets of character traits and dialogue. But, more than a paragraph? Never.
Give me an electronic device and I’ll happily pound out thousands of words. I’ve been known to write paragraphs on my Palm E2 just using the onscreen keyboard with the stylus! But I can’t write with a pen?
Which got me thinking, how do you write? do the ideas flow through a pencil point or ink? Or is the tap of the keyboard that stirs up your imagination?
That does it.
I’m going to find a really lovely (fountain pen) writer for you, and send it to you. Chickenscratch, cramps… You’re using the WRONG PEN.
You get cramps because you grip the pen hard and you press down hard to get the words to the paper. But if you have a nicely flowing (and I mean flowing, not spilling) pen, where you don’t have to put three tons of weight on it… it’s a joy to write then.
I write correspondence by fountain pen, but I type my novels. Yeah, I could write on a notepad, but then I’d have to type it all up anyway. And I’m lazy.
You knew this was coming, didn’t ya?
Silke(Quote) (Reply)
Deb, this could have been my post! I HATE long hand! But I did do it when I was bored at work and didn’t have anything else to do (when my boss was gone). I still have all those scenes tucked away in my drawer, waiting to make it into an actual MS!
Stephanie(Quote) (Reply)
Oh, and I knew Silke would give you a lecture, HA!
Stephanie(Quote) (Reply)
Umm…both? I need the edit features of a keyboard, but when I finish a chapter, I have to print it out, read it on paper, and make more edits with a pen–adding layers, refining word choices, etc. I NEED physical paper to read from to do this. I can’t use Track Changes on my computer because I tend to skip over phrases and miss errors on a screen that leap out at me on paper. There are as many methods as there are writers, I suppose.
Gina Ardito(Quote) (Reply)