"you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will."
— Stephen King (On Writing)
— Stephen King (On Writing)
Ever since I first started writing I have had a constant argument over whether to write a first draft with the old fashioned pen and paper or to just go right for the trusty computer. My first several stories were all written my hand and I still have the notebooks that contain them, I always get a nice sense of nostalgia when I look back through my first forays into writing.. It is somewhat grueling at times but I think it helps me feel closer to the piece if I write it out by hand, and I do enjoy the tactile sensation of writing. Writing something by hand has its down sides as well, hand cramps, illegible hand writing, ink stains on your fingers, etc. It also uses up a lot of paper which might be a detraction to a serious environmentalist, but I do use recycled paper notebooks for all of my writing. I think the thing that I enjoy the most about writing a first draft with pen and paper is having a physical copy of all the hard work, I like being able to look back in all my notebooks and seeing exactly how my project started and how far it has come.
My absolute favorite author Stephen King is a big advocate of writing all first drafts by hand and in fact is a big reason that I came back to writing on paper. He spoke about it in his book "On Writing" and I thought that many of his insights were close to what I myself hold true. After writing my first several stories on paper I got lazy and began writing all my work on the computer which even I have to admit is easier and has a lot of convenience. I like the the spell check and the word count and the fact that you can type a lot faster than you can write is also a plus. Then about a year and a half ago I had an event that sealed the deal for me. I had been doing all of my writing on my computer for several years at this point and so I had a considerable body of work saved on my machine, when it bit the big one and died. Now admittedly I should haven been more diligent with backing up my files, and while I didn't loose everything I lost some very important work and it took a lot of time and energy to recover and in some cases was completely destroyed. I was pretty pissed and it made me think about going back to my old method so that I would always have a hard copy of all my work to fall back on should technology fail me again.
I now have a plan where I am writing all first drafts on paper and then once editing is completely finished I am printing out a hard copy of the finished product as well. The word processor I am using is Google Docs now as well so that they have all my work saved and it is not dependent on my computer to keep it all together. I fact writing by hand has encouraged me to pursue more writing hobbies such as calligraphy which I am loving. I enjoy writing by hand and it is something I think I will continue to do to bring me closer to my work and help me feel a deeper connection to language itself. I encourage all writers to try writing a first draft the old fashioned way with pen and paper, it may not be something you stick with but I think the experience is definitely worth having.
Here is a a link to a website that shows some examples of some truly beautiful handwriting and how it can be an expressive art form all on its own.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/07/beautiful-handwriting-lettering-and-calligraphy/
