I’m an unapologetic longhander.

It never occurred to me to be anything else. Over the last couple years, I’ve been surprised to find out that I’m apparently in a small minority. Almost every writer I’ve told this dirty little secret of mine to has looked at me like a third arm is growing out of my forehead. They shake their heads and politely try to steer the conversation to some other part of the 21st century I might be able to relate to.

My first conclusion was that I’m doing something wrong. I immediately sat down in front of a fresh, empty Word doc and waited for my fingers to begin blasting out that Breakthrough Story. After all, I type faster than I write. I certainly think faster than I write. Faster is better. How could this go wrong?

And hour later, my Word doc still an empty expanse of white, I pulled out my trusty notebook and got back to writing stories in the only way that seems to work for me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-technology. I work with computers for a living. I wish that I could sit at one and pound out stories the same way I do in my notebook. Only faster. But, I can’t. It doesn’t work for me.

I’ve spent some time thinking about it. Why does longhand work so much better for me? I’ve come up with a list of reasons. I’m not trying to convince any of you typer-types out there that you’re doing it wrong. You’re not. Go with what works for you. This is why longhand works for me.

– Turns out, for me at least, that faster is not better. Writing longhand slows me down. It gives my brain more time to process what I’m doing and where I’m going than it’s allowed when I’m typing. This helps me keep a more coherent picture in my head. For me, slower is better, even if it is, well, slower.

– Distractions! I bet many of you can relate to this. My biggest distraction, by far, is my computer. Especially the internet. When I grab my notebook, I sit somewhere that my computer isn’t. In another room. Farther away if I can. When I work at a computer and I hit one of those spots–you know the ones–where I’m stuck for a moment looking for the right word or image. My brain says, “Go play a quick game on Sporcle. Check your email. Check the baseball scores. I’ll work on it while you’re gone.” And I do. And writing stops, and often doesn’t get started again. When I’m writing in my notebook and that same thing happens, I look up and stare into the distance for a few moments. Then my brain realizes how boring that is and lets me go back to writing.

– Writing in a notebook helps me control my editor. That guy is a real pain (see my last post). At the computer, he can take over and suddenly I realize I’m rewriting a paragraph, or a page. In my notebook, I can satisfy Internal Editor Guy by writing a note in the margin near the area he’s agonizing over. It’s like a promise to him that I’ll get back to it. I won’t forget. It seems to satisfy him and he lets me write.

– Have you ever dead-ended a story? Or a scene? Sure you have. It’s time to start over. But, there’s something about that Delete key that makes it hard to push. “I can save this!” inner-editor says, and there you go, off to editing. In my notebook, I just scrawl a big X through what’s not working and start again. Somehow this works. Once I put that magic X through something, Internal Editor Guy forgets about it. It works like the Delete key, only easier and less painful.

– I get a free editing pass. This one is a huge advantage for me. Once I’ve finished a draft in my notebook, the next step is typing it in my computer (I do edit on my computer). This is a free editing pass. I can’t help but read what I’ve written as I type. I catch typos, and repetition. Awkward sentences get reworded. Commas are sent to their correct locations. And it all feels like I’m getting it for free, because this is just mindless typing-in-what-I-wrote. A chore, like doing the dishes or clipping my toenails.

– Writing in a notebook makes me more experimental. This is really a mash-up of what I’ve said before. When I’m writing longhand, I’m less afraid to try something different. I’m especially less resistant to giving up on something different I’m trying that isn’t working. Experimentation doesn’t feel costly. When I’m typing, things are moving faster. My brain doesn’t have time to explore alternate directions, its just trying to stay ahead of my fingers. Follow me. Down this path! Don’t look there. Keep moving, straight ahead! Not to mention, there’s that whole dreaded Delete key thing if the experimentation doesn’t work. (Internal Editor Guy: Look, I know you think this idea of 2nd person plural future conditional doesn’t feel right, but I can make it work! Just change that verb to ‘might have could been’ and then add an adverb there and . . .”)

– This is the one that’s going to make all you electronicists (is that a word?) laugh. Nostalgia. I get a kick out of having a shelf of old notebooks, full of excruiatingly bad first drafts, stacked side-by-side. I even go back and read through them sometimes, and like good music or certain smells, they bring me back to the time that they were written. Ah, I wrote this in a hotel room in Chicago during WorldCon. My conceit is that someday they’ll be in a museum and teachers will look at them and say to their students, “This is the first draft of that famous story you’re all required to read. See how terrible it is?” Okay, I’d settle for one kid looking through them someday and maybe getting that first seed of a love for writing. In the meantime, I enjoy them. They comfort me and provide a solid reminder that I’m building a history of my journey as a writer.

How about you? Longhander or Electronicist? Some magical combination of both? Why? I’d love to hear your take.

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