By Pen and Hand

This is writing advice, but it's also a small commentary on human neural networks. When you write something (anything) by hand, your brain is better engaged in the process and so too are its creative centers. There is a real connection that typing on a keyboard, or dictating into your phone, cannot give you. Your mind lights up.

Writing letters into words, into sentences, is creative magic. The hand paints while the brain dreams, a synergy of imagination. Nothing can ever match it.

I've written four books in my lifetime, each one by hand. I have piles of composition books with handwritten chapters, scribbles in the margins, whole sections crossed out and arrows leaping over paragraphs to change the order. I loved the final products, but I also loved the process which gave me equal joy.

Remember, neither a keyboard nor a phone is a writing instrument. You are.