"Ideas, sentences and snippets all go in to my notebook, but the actual writing is done on a computer. It's easier to play with and edit your writing on a computer." Also I sometimes get blocked in longhand and find moving to screen frees my ideas." "If I start in longhand, I soon have to move to a screen because I revise and cross out so much, I can't read it. Digital copies can be endlessly backed up and synched so that the loss of any particular gizmo is irrelevant."
"If your notebook is lost or stolen, there goes the only hard copy of your work. "I don't mind the process of transferring work to a computer - I think it's a valuable part of the process, but am careful to use an old computer with no internet on." "My handwriting is atrocious, and when I write in longhand it doesn't seem like good writing at all - stupid I know, but there is a mental displeasure for me when I see my own handwriting." "And writing a novel by hand is a wonderfully romantic notion but really only possible when your handwriting is legible - and mine is certainly not, these days. Also, writing longhand is very demanding of energy, which not everyone has." the end, your back and neck ache, your eyes are straining and your legs and bum have fallen asleep.where's the pleasure in that? Writing on paper is much better for your health, and for your art." "Think of all the long arduous hours spent with your eyes glued to a bright screen, arched over a "As a seventeen year old aspiring novelist, I certainly hope that pen-on-paper writers aren't a dying breed! Being an English, History and Philosophy A-level student, I usually have to write up to three 2,000 word essays per week. Computers, for me, have just become a quick and lazy way of meetingĭeadlines. Of course it's easier and faster to type your work, with the aid of the wonderful "spell check" and the internet offering you myriad sources of inspiration, but where's the fun in that?" Inefficient way to write if you think about it." Sometimes I am writing at a speed of one word per minute because I delete and replace each word 60 times. ".a big problem with computers is the ability to edit as you type. "Paper notebooks are easily transported, permanent, and they do not need a battery or electricity (or repeated recharging). Whereas on a computer you are disconnected from the letters that you type in sequence, when handwriting you are very aware of the words and the rhythm of them." I think the reason for this is mostly muscle memory. Whereas when typing I always make several silly mistakes (and have to run the whole thing through spell-check) when handwriting I have one or two misspellings per page. "I find that the action of handwriting not only causes me to consider more, but also leads to more ideas. "Vladimir Nabokov wrote his novels on notecards before writing the whole thing out in full, which he would then have his secretary typed." good job Plato did or we may have forgotten both of them." "Even Socrates said don't write it down or we'll forget it. Writing on the screen is far more ephemeral – a sentence deleted can't be reconsidered. Also, you know, the internet." "Writing on the page stays on the page, with its scribbles and rewrites and long arrows suggesting a sentence or paragraph be moved, and can be looked over and reconsidered. "I travel quite a lot, and like the idea that I don't have to worry about some piece of electronic junk that might get stolen or broken, and that you can buy a notebook or pen anywhere."
Writing on paper will give my eyes a break and I've tried on and off to write with a 2B pencil again. However, my left hand aches easily and makes writing legibly difficult. Anyway, I saw this notebook yesterday and imagined my writing filling up the pages. I bought it. But I am undecided whether to write it on paper or on computer. Any writer will agree that staring long hour at the computer is very tiring. In fact, I'm frustrated with myself at times for fussing over the font to use. Now I write all my magazine articles on the computer because my handwriting looks nothing close to it used to be (thanks to years of typing on computer after leaving school). I don't think writing on computer is better or faster for me. My only dislike was the dirt from the eraser which I produced quite a lot. I loved how the dark, thick strokes animate every letter in my stories. I had only written creatively on paper once and that was when I was still in primary school. I had seen a typewriter (my aunt had one) but I had neither seen nor heard about computers. I wrote childish stories on a A4 notebook and only with a 2B pencil.