writing by hand

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Creating Manuscripts in the True Sense of the Word

I had a Creative Writing teacher in University who told us if you were going to write novels, you had to write them directly on the computer. It was too much work otherwise.

Not True.

The only pieces I write directly on the computer are these blogs. Anything with any length to it gets written out longhand first. From short stories, to Reality Fiction Too!, which was over 1,000 pages.

I agree eventually you’ve got to type the damn thing into the computer, because using the computer is the only practical way to edit a book after you’ve written it — especially if it’s over a thousand pages. I use the process of entering the manuscript into the word processing program as an opportunity to do the first comprehensive redraft of the work. Very useful.

You might think using pen and ink is an archaic way of approaching the whole enterprise. After all, why not avail myself of the technology? In fact, why don’t I skip the whole 1,000 page nonsense to begin with and just tweet the novel?

RF2: many characters lots of conflict Theda wins lol

That’s not exactly the life affirming creative process I’m hoping to engage in when I sit down to write … There are distinct advantages to picking up a pen and letting the words emerge the slow way. But don’t just take my word for it. Read what other more famous names who do the same thing have to say about the practice.

Reality Fiction Too! apart, how can any real writer expect to turn out anything resembling a substantial body of work when they start off by writing their manuscripts longhand, you might ask? As my University prof complained, the time it must take! Well, what about …

Stephen King

It slows you down. It makes you think about each word as you write it, and it also gives you more of a chance so that you're able-- the sentences compose themselves in your head. It's like hearing music, only it's words. But you see more ahead because you can't go as fast.

Or what about the equally prolific …

Joyce Carol Oates

Why is this so unusual? Every writer has written “by hand” until relatively recent times. Writing is a consequence of thinking, planning, dreaming — this is the process that results in “writing,” rather than the way in which the writing is recorded.

The truth is, you have a lot more time to think about what you’re writing when you do it by hand. As another proud practitioner of the pen and ink tradition mentions …

Amy Tan

Writing by hand helps me remain open to all those particular circumstances, all those little details that add up to the truth.

And then there’s the sensual satisfaction of physically filling up a blank page.

Neil Gaiman

I like the whole first and second draft feeling, and the act of making paper dirty

My manuscripts rarely make it to completion without a few ketchup stains. I like to write while I eat lunch. Try doing that and typing on a computer keyboard at the same time without blowing a few circuits.

Quentin Tarantino

My ritual is, I never use a typewriter or computer. I just write it all by hand. It’s a ceremony. I go to a stationery store and buy a notebook — and I don’t buy like 10. I just buy one and then fill it up. Then I buy a bunch of red felt pens and a bunch of black ones, and I’m like, “These are the pens I’m going to write Grindhouse with.”

I like writing with different coloured pens too, alternating chapter by chapter, blue, black, green, red and purple. Although I’m thinking of giving up green, because the ink is always so light I have trouble reading it afterwards with my aging eyes.

But you don’t necessarily have to use pen and ink, or even regular 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper either.

Truman Capote …

wrote the first and second drafts of his novels entirely in pencil, then switched to a typewriter for the third drafts.

Vladimir Nabokov …

did all of his writing by hand – on index cards! This gave him the opportunity to perform hands-on cut-and-paste work, rearranging scenes by moving cards around. He also preferred to work standing up.

On top of all this, no one ever lost a handwritten manuscript to a hard drive suddenly crashing, or to word processing software suddenly glitching and irrevocably devouring three pages you just wrote. Which did happen to me, the one and only time I wrote a longer work directly on the infernal machine. I love writing the first time, but trying to reconstruct what I just wrote after being suddenly thrust into an extremely bad mood by Bill Gates and MicroSith is pure hell, let me assure you.

So on that note — right after I finish backing this blog up on an external drive — you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got a date with a notebook and some several delightful pens …

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Photography by Renee Beaubien, at Beyond the Prism!

On Flickr, at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

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REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Episode Fifteen, Stevenson-Ish, unfolds this week, with the first part on Monday, June 29th and the second on Friday July 3rd. Don’t miss the cameo in the actual story by Tunguska! Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Victor Coffin gets his hands on the notebooks and certain chemicals left behind by the infamous Dr. Henry Jekyll …

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

Episode Fourteen: Miller-Ish — Tempering the Cauldron

Episode Fifteen: Stevenson-Ish — Dr. Coffin’s Kindly Concoction

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.

After this week, 8 instalments to go!