Why Writing is Better in Longhand
Thank you, Gavin, for this post!
You make some good points here, but there is something happening that you haven’t touched on. Handwriting uses the right side of the brain, the creative side. Typing, especially if you are a bad typist like I am, uses the left side of the brain, the analytical, logical side of the brain.
In my case it was very obvious as I couldn’t type one sentence without getting stuck and making changes and correcting stuff. When I hand-wrote the pieces, using script writing, the stuff just flowed out of me. It was a very natural process. Now if one types 120 words a minute, they probably could do the same thing, but for those of us that are thinking while they type, it just doesn’t work very well.
I hand-wrote almost my entire first draft of my novel. Then I needed to tie up some loose ends so I just typed it right into my PC. Now, THAT was the stuff that I lost, trying to copy it onto a flash drive.
I re-wrote those pieces, sort of half and half, I wrote down some of what I remembered from what I lost and added to it when I typed it.
You need to be loose and let the creative juices flow for that first draft. The writing doesn’t come from your brain; it comes from your heart and from the environment, much the same way that someone might get an idea about how to make electricity. Not sure how much sense that makes, but I hope you get the idea.
In fact, I am just realizing that this is why I am having so much trouble getting anything done on the prequel to my novel! I need to write it by hand first!
Thank you very much for this reminder!
Peace, love & harmony,
Sherrie
Sherrie Miranda’s historically based, coming of age, Adventure novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador” is about an American girl in war-torn El Salvador:
http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y
Her husband made a video for her novel. He wrote the song too:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/P11Ch5chkAc?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Originally posted on Gavin Zanker:
Yesterday, unable to face the monster word document of my second draft lurking away in my hard drive, I pulled out a notepad and started scribbling. An hour later, I found I’d rewritten an entire chapter of my book from scratch. It had been so long since I’d written anything more than post-its and quick notes that I had entirely forgotten the benefits of writing longhand.
It’s interesting to think that every author until recent times has written out their work by hand. The computer screen has only existed for a relatively short amount of time. In fact, many writers still make the decision to write longhand in favour of using a computer. Quentin Tarantino said as much in an interview with Reuters a few years ago.
‘My ritual is, I never use a typewriter or computer. I just write it all by hand. It’s a ceremony. I go to…
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