Good Writers Use . . .

Good writers use pens. That’s the advice from my tenth grade English teacher, Mr. Cowden. I know I shred this man a lot due to the fact that he singlehandedly tried to put a stop to the writing career dreams of my youth. But I thought of something he’d said all those years ago that struck me as weird today while I edited over some of the new pages I’d written. He said something to the effect of: ”A good writer always writes in pen because it shows they have the confidence and education to know that they will get it right the first time.”

I wanted to be a confident and educated writer. I wanted to be a *good* writer most of all. I wrote with a pen from then on. My first three and a half books were written by hand and all in pen. I have a dozen notebooks filled with pen-scrawled words (and scratched out words and even scratched out pages). It’s been years since my handwritten manuscript days, years since a pen was used for anything more than signing a book.

The computer is my new pen. Bless the smart people who created word processing.

Today, I deleted a whole lot. The deletes made the dialogue smooth, the narrative stronger. And I thought back to that day with Mr. Cowden. I thought back to how on some level I must have respected him as a teacher–must have believed his declaration that good writers use pens. Why else would I write with such an instrument for so many years after his class?

I declare my independence from such bad advice.

Why use a pen when a pencil is so obviously superior? A pencil comes with an editing device called an ERASER. Good writers should use pencils Because good writers know the importance of a good edit. It isn’t about the arrogance of putting an idea down right the first time. It’s about getting it right in the end.