The Writing Process and My Hardwired Brain
Cat Rambo, guest posting on Jeff VanderMeer’s blog, recently revealed her writing process. She likes to write things out long-hand in sketch books before committing them to the computer. I’ve seen similiar posts from other authors using a variation on this method - note books, note cards, scraps of paper, etc. Many people praise the organic feel of writing with paper and pen. Not me. I hate it. My hand can’t keep up with my brain, I get impatient, my fingers cramp, and I can barely read my own lousy handwriting. To me, keyboard writing is organic - there is a rhythm, everything flows. I write long-hand as a last resort.
Reflecting on this preference I realized, at this point in my life, my brain is pretty much hardwired for keyboard use. From a very early age I played with my parents’ old word processor and typewriter. I had teachers in elementary school encourage me to type up assignments, because it was easier than trying to decipher my handwriting. I picked up the keyboard habit, and it stuck.
At work, I was recently called upon to take meeting minutes. As I was scrambling to keep up, I occasionally found myself completely blanking on how to spell basic words. Spelling has never been my strength; this is where the hardwiring comes in again. With typing, there is muscle memory. My fingers know where to go to make the words. Writing long-hand, I have no such memory to carry me through. When I’m in a rush, or tired, sometimes I get lost.
It’s like anything else - it takes practice. When I was in school and taking class notes every day, my handwriting was better (not good, but better). I never found myself blinking at the letters in a word with no idea how to arrange them. It’s almost like learning a second language; if you don’t use it regularly, you lose it. Once upon a time, I spoke French, but I haven’t lived in Quebec for seven years. If I attempted a friendly chat now, I would still understand what the other person was saying, but I seriously doubt I would be able to hold up my half of the conversation.
And in news totally unrelated to my random musing on the nature of my brain - banned books week officially began today. I will be shooting my mouth off about this topic again in future posts, but in the mean time, I’m going to go celebrate by going to my local library and adopting some poor, homeless books from their annual sale.
September 28th, 2008 at 10:28 am
You’re writing style sounds almost exactly like mine, and for the same reasons. I’m also a bad speller and no one (including me) can read my handwriting. The only difference is that I tend to write my ideas on various pieces of paper and I will sometimes start out the first couple of paragraphs of a story by hand before changing to the computer.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Occasionally, I’ll grab a piece of paper and scribble stuff down so I don’t forget it. Unfortunately, I’m less likely to come back and work on the story if I start it out that way.