Photo Credit: Public Domain
Brain-to-pen-to-paper.
Yup, this post was originally written long hand and then transferred to the digital format, you see here.
Do you do it this way too? Or are you a direct to computer writer?
Most of my story ideas are first jotted down on paper. To me all of the scribbles, erasures, fold marks and creases are what help give my characters some of their character.
Typed words and letters are always shaped the same way each time, even if someone jiggles your arm while you’re writing. Cold and no character.
PC’s have only been mainstream for the past 25 years, and well, I’m a little bit older than that so I learned how to write the old fashioned way.
As a kid, I often sat in my room doing homework with a pencil on paper, erasing my mistakes and correcting them again in pencil. There was none of this backspace, delete nonsense. (Just kidding. I love my computers).
But seriously, for me, writing with a pen makes the connection for me. A nice down and dirty, smooth rolling pen. Blue ink. Purple when I’m feeling extra sassy.
Just give me direct contact to the page. A computer screen is not a page. It’s a display for editing and for the final home, for the work… Unless you’re writing a script and it goes into production, then guess what… Back to paper with notes, scribbles, highlighted dialogues, and sometimes lunch orders.
Ah, the full circle.
The other reasons, I like writing on paper is the portability. No schlepping, No electricity. And when I do type my notes into ta formatted document, I edit as I go so my first computer draft is actually my second overall draft.
How do you prefer to write? And what do you write?