I tend to flip between both - if I hit writer's block when I'm typing a story, shifting to pen and paper tends to help get it going again, and vice versa. I find pen and paper a bit of a different mindset because it is slower, and has no neat delete option. It forces me to think more about where I'm going with the sentence. Which format I start with generally depends on whether I'm closer to the computer or my notebook when I get an idea.
Completly random thought. All this talk about techonology leads me to wonder how many of you can find the square root of anything without a calculator. My Comp Sci. teacher always told me that when she was in middle school they taught students how to do that. I wonder if in another forty years we will all forget how to write but know how to type on PC's. Issac Asimov wrote a story like that where mankind had forgotten how to do simple math and had to rely on calculators and PC's. Be sure to hold on to the basics. Know matter how advanced a society is if I was transported a hundred years and we only used voice to write word's on our PC's and had the screen read everything back to us. How stupid would we be? I know I would think people were idiots if they could not read, or write, or type no matter how much tech they have.
A very good thought. You know, I've far less effort put into teaching kids with learning disabilities how to read simply because there are programs that read and write for us already.
Could you imagine a world where one day simple skills like those are no longer taught? It is very facinating and could make for even more good stories.
Yeah. That would be awesome. Maybe all those thoughts and ideas that are crammed in an author's head are automatically stored in some database, so you can CLICK!, and there they are. That would be a dream for me, cause I suck at organizing ideas.
I type my writing, usually. But I review by hand. Then pay people to enter those revisions into a computer.
I like writing by hand, I accomplish more that way then any other method. I wrote 11 pages in one sitting of the beginning of an idea I wanted to turn into a novel. I wrote 4-5 pages of something that was to be a short story. I once took a creative writing class with a woman who had been published in her 20's (this prob would of been the late 60's, early 70's) and we discussed writing by hand and she suggested that writing by hand was best because your hand movements where stimulating the brain and thus making you more creative. Of course both of us then discussed how daunting a task transcribing notebooks into the computer would be. lol! I think one of the best lines of writing I have ever produced flowed from my hand with pen and paper and that was when I was in high-school. Another pro for pen and paper is the fact that you can actually see your progress as you go along. You can't do that really with a keyboard. With paper you write and you see a page is done. With a computer you write and you're lucky if you just finished a quarter page. I think this is what separates the two and why lots of people tend to get stuck when writing with text docs. although pen and paper doesn't bode well when transferring it to the computer. One page of a notebook is probably equal length of a half or less of a word document. So you need probably double the notebooks to write what you could just write with a word document. Of course the second best way to write, I think, is the typewriter. You hear that "click, click, click, ding* sound and you want to continue writing. Plus like paper you can see your progress page by page. I like the typewriter sound so much, I put it on my laptop and actually noticed an increase in my writing because of it. longhand isn't dead. Grisham writes long hand, or so I read. Tarantino Told Eli Roth that writing your first drafts long hand is best and in code so no one can steal your work because no one can decipher it but you. Lucas wrote Star Wars Ep. 1 on yellow legal pad. So I say lots of people still do.
I keep a regular journal, which is usually handwritten. But since my handwriting is illegible and my hand often gets cramped after a good hour of constant writing, I do prefer to type.
I still write by hand sometimes. But most of it is done at the computer. When I'm away from the computer I write in my leather journal with a fine point ink pen. It gives the feeling of writing in the old days. But my hand writing is atrocious so half the time what I write on paper doesn't go into the actual story on the computer just a combination of what was written and what I thought of after I wrote it.
I usually start by writing by hand... it's a fluid more creativity-inducing movement for me. I then submit it here, and do the rest on computer or ipod touch. But if I were to write a novel, (all I write is short stories) I would go ahead and do it all on the computer.
I write by hand at first, and then type it up on the computer when I'm near the end and know how I want the story to come out. For me, writing longhand is just a way of exploring an idea. And as I keep a notepad with me at all times, I can always write longhand.
I just wrote a few paragraphs with my caligraphy pen. Other than having to dip into the ink bottle every two minutes, it was awesome.
Writing by hand stimulates my creativity as I doodle all over the page...alternate word choices, varying descriptions, little sketched pictures...no surface of the page goes unused. Then, once an idea comes together, I hit the computer for productivity. Writing by hand = creativity. Writing on the computer = productivity.
Every rough draft is in one journal or another. In fact, ever revised version tends to be written down on the back of a printed copy. And every re-write tends to happen like that too... I only seem to use the computer to type up the drafts after all the writing is done.
Not if I can help it. Mainly because I can't read my own handwriting and I hate getting tiny pencil calluses... But I DO prefer to edit by hand with a printed copy. You catch so much more and it's fun drawing all those big circles and lines and Xs everywhere. Makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something (when I'm probably not).
If you had an art supply store, go and see if they sell drafters pencils. (AKA Lead Holder/Mechanical Pencil) They should have a range of them between the cheap ones they sell for school kids, or really good ones that are used for architects. The good ones run about 10 bucks and you can buy a thing of 12 tubes for about 20 bucks I think. So for 30, you can have a pencil that never shrinks, feels good in your hand and last a long time. You could also buy soft rubber grips for them too. I bought mine last May and still have the initial leads mine have come with. I haven't even had to go into the case of leads yet. I calculated it, at the rate I draw and use leads, my 30 bucks spent last May, should last me until I'm about in my early 30's (I'll be 23 in April) That is a long time. it will probably be even longer lasting for writing because you don't use as much of the lead for shading or anything. 30 dollars for over a decade of drawing/writing is a great investment.
Computer all the way. I rarely, if ever, write anything in a notebook unless I'm desperate and stranded without my laptop. I'm borderline dyslexic (great idea to be a writer, I know), and my handwriting and spelling are a complete mess, to the point where I can't even read my own sentences. I would have flunked out of school had there not been computers and spellcheck available; My sense of spelling is really that bad. I also have the awesome little knack of rearranging letters within the word, so "apple" becomes "ppael" or something to that extent. Vowels are almost always inverted, reversed, etc. and I spell everything phonetically. Typing, for some reason, helps me organize the letters in my head, so they come out right.
Normally I write by longhand only in bed or in a car. The last couple of weeks, though, I've had cubital tunnel syndrome in my left hand and have had to stay off the keyboard, mostly. I can barely read my handwriting any more!
I do my raw creative work longhand (on long legal pads with a black pilot razor point pen, in the best of all possible worlds, but it's not absolutely necessary) and transcribe them in open office. I'll keep doing it that way as long as it works.
Most of my initial drafts are done on paper as I usually get the ideas whilst sat on public transport going to work. After that it goes on the PC.
I do most of the time because it is out of habit and I bought a journal so I can keep track of what I am writing but I think it will be to my advantage to buy something like so I can type and save it. Later I would like to buy a tape recorder so I can speak what is on my mind especially to record it on the spot so I can save it. I have this habit of waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to write down but don't have a pen and paper. If I get the software I can organize it better than on paper.
