Typing versus writing and my stubborn right-handedness

Do you write much by hand anymore? I do three "morning pages" faithfully ever day, occasional freewriting, and I jot notes to myself here and there, though every now and then I try to weed out and condense my notes-to-self into Evernote, where I have a chance of someday finding them again when I need them. I have two types of writing, self-writing and other-people writing. My self-writing is a scrawly lowercase thing that's barely legible. My more presentible writing is all caps, block print. Writing cursive is awkward for me and I hardly ever do it, it feels like "impostor" writing, not real.

I'm reading (yet another) book on writers block that suggests our left and right hemespheres have different takes on why we do or don't write. It suggests posing questions to yourself and answering first with your dominant and then your non-dominant hand. MY LEFT HAND CAN BARELY HOLD A PEN. I find this extremely weird. I can play a guitar. The left hand is called upon to do some pretty complicated stuff on a guitar neck. But it can't hold a pen.

And this notion led me to wondering if maybe typing has some kind of special access to both hemespheres. I've never seen that theory floated anywhere and I've always thought it must. Last writing group I was brainstorming with a friend and she started speaking an idea at the same time she was typing it, and I saw that "click" happening. I think it's the "click" I get when I'm working successfully on a story. Typing.

What about you? Right handed? Left handed? Hopeless with your non-dominant hand? See a big difference when you're typing versus writing?

My mom is a semi-ambidextrous lefty. Weird random fact.

The book is Write: 10 Days to Overcome Writer's Block. Period.
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Published on March 19, 2015 10:22
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message 1: by Janice (new)

Janice Here's weirdness for you - I like making up stories in my head when I go to bed. Only I have to be laying on my right side to hear my characters voices. If I roll over onto my left side, they're suddenly silent and I fall asleep.


message 2: by Jordan (new)

Jordan Price Janice wrote: "Here's weirdness for you - I like making up stories in my head when I go to bed. Only I have to be laying on my right side to hear my characters voices...."

Whoa! That's fascinating! I think you can manipulate your hemispheres by doing things like breathing through one nostril, too, only I haven't played with that much.


message 3: by Kyle (new)

Kyle Nicholas Janice, I have something similar that goes on with me. For years I couldn't fall asleep unless I rolled onto my right side. These days, I still can't fall asleep on my back, but that's the only position in which I can make up the stories that help me drift off. Once I roll over on my side, either one, I lose the story. Funny, isn't it?


message 4: by Janice (new)

Janice Kyle, makes you wonder if we're the norm or just have a skewed way of falling asleep. The other half just gets into bed and bang he's gone. Left, right, front back, doesn't matter, he's snoring within seconds of his head hitting the pillow. Lucky bastard!

Jordan, you could probably do yourself a serious injury writing with your offside hand while experimenting with the left/right nostril. Not to mention, if your mother was anything like mine, you were admonished to keep your fingers away from your nose. LOL


message 5: by Jordan (new)

Jordan Price HAHA, Momma's not here to monitor my nose, is she??? ;-)


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