Handwriting or Typing?

[Hypoxia]

Past: I wrote journals, songs, and notes on paper. Sometimes I dictated same into a reporter's cassette deck. I then transcribed and edited and improved all that on computer. I can think of maybe three stories I handwrote in the last two decades, and I only finished one of them on paper. (See my XYZ-BOMBER.)

I used to keep all my notebooks. But when I felt suicidal last year, I shredded them all. No evidence, except what's on disc. Hmmm, I forgot to wipe the tapes...

Now: I write songs and shopping lists on paper. Everything else is keyboarded, mostly on laptops ranging from 10 to 17 inches. I also have a wee Bluetooth keyboard for my 8 inch Android tablet -- I only use that when I haven't schlepped a mini-laptop with me.

Given the right circumstances -- like, taking long drives, or biking spins, or walks -- I would go the dictation route again. Motion stimulates my internal voices. Ah, more transcribing...

Why not handwrite? My print and script are not quite legible -- I trained in mechanical drawing, and I know how to letter correctly. But I usually think and type much faster than I write. If a story or account is flowing, putting it to paper just slows me intolerably.

My handwriting medium of choice: GRAPH PAPER! I still have stacks of tablets of yellow graph paper, and a few smaller notebooks of white graph paper. Why? For writing code, and organized notes, and outlines, and matrices, and equations; for drawing diagrams, especially logic and circuits and layouts and maps. And, as mentioned above, for sectioning-off projects on a page.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I write on this.

I like to use a fountain pen (with a fine gold nib) but I don't like the one I currently have. I'm looking for a new one; the ones in the shop aren't quite right. I shall take my time about it. I dropped this one a couple of times on the nib but it still works OK, so I keep going with it. I tried to buy a cheap one as a quickie replacement, I couldn't get one with a fine nib.

After I've drafted a chapter and read it through a couple of times, I type it up. In my 'office' for preference. I touch type, so I can get the words on the li'l netbook as quickly as I read them, and I can edit as I go.

 

[NaokoSmith]

So . . . You write to-do lists tangentially to your stories, huh?

If I can get hold of it, I like to write on paper with small squares - like in French exercise books. As it's hard to get hold of blocks of paper like that, I usually use narrow feint.

I love the whole thing, that the pen ... is cool and hard between my fingers, the whisper of my hand across the page, the taste of chocolate in my mouth ... I mean the taste of the words! There is a whole palaver to getting out the writing slope and making sure the table is clean to put it on. It's like a ritual for the act of writing smut, which I have to make time for when Piglet is not around, and I don't have cooking to do or a pile of assignments to mark.

I like to cut out pictures from magazines too, and stick them to fine letter paper, then get my slope out and write a letter.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

At fucking last. A real writer.

Yeah you. You with the chocolates in your mouth.

 

[THROBBS]

I enjoy hearing about (and seeing) how people work creatively.

Thank you for this thread, VenusButterflies.

 

[VenusButterflies]

I enjoy hearing about (and seeing) how people work creatively.

Thank you for this thread, VenusButterflies.

Me too! And you're welcome.

 

[NaokoSmith]

At fucking last. A real writer.

Yeah you. You with the chocolates in your mouth.

Wasssat? Chocolate-filled mumbling.

Yes, thank you Venus! It's fun to find out how people write as well as what we write.

 

[VenusButterflies]

Wasssat? Chocolate-filled mumbling.

Yes, thank you Venus! It's fun to find out how people write as well as what we write.

Aww, you're welcome!

 

[patientlee]

Here's my desk. (Attached)

 

[THROBBS]

Here's my desk. (Attached)

Logged in, eh?

 

[HeyAll]

I type.

The singer Nick Cave had a comment that he uses an old typewriter instead of a computer, because he's had bad days and ended up deleting a bunch of good stuff. With a typewriter, the stuff will always be there to sift through.

 

[THROBBS]

I type.

The singer Nick Cave had a comment that he uses an old typewriter instead of a computer, because he's had bad days and ended up deleting a bunch of good stuff. With a typewriter, the stuff will always be there to sift through.

hopefully.
The singer, John Cougar Mellencamp's mom threw out some of his written songs.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I type.

The singer Nick Cave had a comment that he uses an old typewriter instead of a computer, because he's had bad days and ended up deleting a bunch of good stuff. With a typewriter, the stuff will always be there to sift through.

I once accidentally over-wrote my previous chapter with my new chapter on my netbook. As I still had the handwritten pages stuffed in a secret location where it hopefully won't fall out when the cub scouts come round to tea (and anyway, it's in handwriting so less legible!), I was able to retype it although I lost some changes I had made.

Nice set-up patientlee!

 

[sheablue]

Here's my desk. (Attached)

And with your graph paper, too!

 

[Handley_Page]

I have a bad case of hand-writing; I either write too slowly, or too fast and it's illegible.
I discovered writing when I got my first computer, and banged the keys firmly. I got to the point where I could type almost as quick as I could think (E&OE).
The result is a page with loads of spelling mistakes (someone's poured a dictionary over the page), but I can deal with that.
Without my keyboard, I'm no a lot of good.

 

[Blind_Justice]

I have written my first story during a school trip, on anything from notepads to paper napkins. The act of puzzling all the notes back together has thoroughly cured me. Also, as a visully handicapped southpaw, my handwriting is crap to begin with. Hooray for the computer.

At school, my typing teacher forced me to use blackened goggles during class and my extracurricular typing. She did this to cure me and the other students with remaining vision of constantly looking at the keys. In my case, it worked pretty well. I can type with all ten fingers quite consistently and concentrate fully on those images and voices in my head...

 

[patientlee]

And my daytime desk. (Attached)

 

[VenusButterflies]

And my daytime desk. (Attached)

What a lovely set up! I am envious!

My "official" set up is generally me in the prone position on my bed in front of my laptop. Otherwise it's me on a train or at work, tapping away on my phone.

 

[sr71plt]

I can only manage to key on my laptop when it's set up on a table (with chair at proper height) just like a desktop--including using a mouse. Any other position, I can't get the typing to "go."

 

[Aynmair]

Since I can remember writing, I've loved writing by hand, with a fountain pen if I have one with me. Even better if I start a new notebook - a truly sensuous experience (no sex involved, just the feeling , Pilot ). I love writing in coffeehouses, in my bed on my lap, at a desk, wherever... I used to HAVE to start writing something in longhand - whatever it was - and then, when the edits got to be too much to look at and to follow, I would transcribe it to my computer, editing again in the process. I am less likely to start in longhand these days and more likely to go straight to my laptop. I have a single computer, my laptop, and I drag it everywhere, almost always, In fact I am writing this in a coffeehouse as we speak - but on an iPad sitting next to my laptop, on which I am working. Division of labor, division of love...

 

[AMoveableBeast]

If I type, I work slowly and precisely. If I write, I am a storm of misspellings and creativity. I try to use both mediums as I need them. But I mostly type, as it calls for way less editing and I'm lazy.

 

[FantasyXY]

The last thing I wrote on paper was something I did professionally. A company hired me to write a detailed proposal. My part was about 450 pages out of 5000. When I arrived at the job they put me in a security bunker and I wasn't allowed to use a computer. I did my work all on paper.

Eventually my background was cleared and they provided me with a computer. I rewrote what I had already done on paper and finished the rest on the computer. To me it didn't make much difference between the two. I write what I write. I have to admit the PC is a little faster for me.

 

[slyc_willie]

And my daytime desk. (Attached)

No way in hell am I posting what my office looks like. It's your typical jumbled mess man-cave, complete with beer cans from last week, empty water bottles, a ton of books laying open and empty food wrappers.

 

[Aynmair]

No way in hell am I posting what my office looks like. It's your typical jumbled mess man-cave, complete with beer cans from last week, empty water bottles, a ton of books laying open and empty food wrappers.

LOL... mine looks like an archaeological dig - layered!

 

[patientlee]

No way in hell am I posting what my office looks like. It's your typical jumbled mess man-cave, complete with beer cans from last week, empty water bottles, a ton of books laying open and empty food wrappers.

That's the beauty of working outside. Nightly cleanup is a requirement. When we're not at the campground, I work on my bed. Just another reason I live for summer.