To the jocks, your road was the one less traveled. I bet it made all the difference. My worst experiences in school weren't teachers. Crazy education fads ruled in the 1970's. Trig without the old fashioned unit circle, endless sentence diagramming in non-English jabberwocky. All kinds of most interesting things. My music teachers were the best because they taught philosophy of life along with music. I will never forget the day I was having trouble on my trumpet with a modest note, a second line A that could land on a false G. My teacher reminded me the note was well within my range, but I was tensing up out of fear I would crack the pitch. She tilted the music stand horizontally and said, "Now the note isn't higher. It's farther away." She had me play the phrase from memory, thinking about reaching a distance, not struggling to ascend a peak. It worked. I did not turn out to be a musician by trade. When I am confronted by a hurdle to overcome, I try to remember it's not a hurdle from a different perspective. A calm mind begets solutions.
Would I recommend writing your first draft by hand? I would recommend writing your first draft by using chalk on the side walk if that's the easiest way to for you to complete your first draft. Is that the easiest to go make edits on, nope. But getting your first draft done is a big accomplishment and if you need to write upside down while snowboarding off a mountain, that's what you should do. But if a writer can comfortably write by typing as easily as they handwrite... I would say type. . Me personally, I actually have to handwrite my first draft, the act of moving my hand on paper is part of my process... but it means even after I have completed my first draft I'm not done. I then have to type up my scribbles on a computer, before I can edit. It is objectively a much longer process but I HAVE TO DO IT! But that's me, that's what works for me, that's all that works for me, and as such I just factor that in as part of the process. I can't say what would work for someone else. If they can type their first draft right on the word processor that they will use to make edits, do that. But if you need to do your first draft by placing sea shells on the beach like your stranded on an island signaling for help, do what works.
Im late to the handwriting/penmanship convo. But my handwriting is a mixture of cursive and print. I learned cursive before really learning to write in print but when i got to homework age, they made me stop writing in cursive because "the other kids arent at that level yet". So now my brain does both. Ill write a word in print and shift to cursive for another word without thinking. Or alternate letters. When i write very fast, it tends to be cursive. When i slow down and and more conscious of what im doing, it tends to be print.
Admittedly, I have not read responses on this thread. I type because I type a lot faster than I write. When the ideas are flowing, the faster I can get them out the better! Then I can tweak or delete as I desire, but if I forget what I'm thinking before I can write it out then all is lost. I've done some planning and characterization and such by hand though. There's a facebook group for writers who use Bullet Journals!
