typewritten v. handwritten

this image shows the moleskin sketchbook of vincent van gogh.

scattered thoughts...

some people study best at night time and in silence, while others prefer daylight and background music.

extended mental processes, and creative processes in particular, are hopelessly open to individual variation. development in a skill is partly a matter of finding what works for you.

so regarding the question of longhand vs typewritten, handwriting vs word processor: --

firstly, it's not an either/or thing -- people frequently use both. the trick is to know when to use what.

and secondly, there's a large number of factors that go into the choice, including:

-- how fast you can type, and how IT-literate you are
-- how messy your handwriting, and how tiring
-- how good an editor you are, and, in general, where your various writing strengths lie
-- the sort of work you're doing -- fiction or non-fiction; prose or poetry; blogging or magazines; outlining or drafting; brainstorming or proofreading; deadlines or no deadlines
-- the style and genre you're writing in (perhaps tiring handwriting is a good thing if you want weariness in your story; perhaps typing is a good thing to access the conventions of e-mails)
-- what you grew up on and are comfortable with
-- what your associations are, how your thinking works
-- and the sheer limitations of your life, like whether or not you've got computer access.


in word you can word count, spell check, find and replace, and footnote. and you can easily reach google, your e-mail, your blog, etc.

on paper you can mind map, chart, and draw.

associations: longhand can feel more like a diary. typewritten can feel more like a public announcement.

longhand can be more relaxed.
longhand can give you permission.
whereas typewritten is closer to publication, and an audience is more distractingly present.

speed - typing lets you get it down before you forget it, and gives you the power to catch a lot more of what flickers across the consciousness -- including your natural speech patterns.

typing can be closer to flying, and can encourage you to think faster. and if your mind is spewing a thousand thoughts a second, you'll need the bucket of typing to catch them.

if your pen can't keep pace with your brain, you might be left with nothing to say, or might find your rhythm and train of thought unsustainable or disrupted.

on the other hand -- yes, more thought happens before and while you longhand-write, but this can be a good thing. your brain spends more time on the words, and can bring more to them.

editing - handwriting pushes you towards the linear and the fixed. whereas word processing can free you to move within a text. typing can be closer to swimming. the text is more penetratable, amorphous.

the words can be lighter, more flexible, more open.
and creation can be more jumpy, associative. the typewritten can have gone through processes that are unimaginable for longhand. so it's not just that editing is easier, but that there's less of a distinction between editing and writing.

you can go back and forth to check on things. you can work on ideas, and on parts of the piece, as they occur to you or catch your eye. -- thought isn't linear, so why should writing be? -- even if the end result is supposed to have this illusion.

form can emerge from chaos. pages of notes can coalesce into coherence. you can brainstorm as you go, collating the results into groups, turning the groups into polished paragraphs.

the text can assemble itself like evolution assembles biospheres, each segment changeable and changing until the entirety reaches equilibrium.



does the option of a backspace mean you're more inclined to use it, or that you'll use it self-destructively?

typewriters.

perhaps they feel efficient, professional, businesslike - put you in a working mood, give you a sense of working away. perhaps they feel like something is happening, like things are getting done.

consider the sound of the carriage return, or the physicality of it, especially if you actually need to push. the crisp action of the keys, their solidity, their precision. the closeness and realness of the machine, and the associations and self-image you're tapping into.

or is the noise distracting?

pen and paper.

no shortage of people to admire the glide, and to spend time and money on finding the right pencil or pen (light, dark, fountain, ballpoint), and the right colour and texture of paper.


moleskine has built a business out of it. and hollywood-types sometimes have a thing about yellow legal pad.

no shortage of people, also, to take pains over or even find inspiration in handwriting.

when you turn off the computer's drone, you begin to be aware of other things -- noises outside, bodily sensations...

and paper can make you think more purposefully. just like people play better chess against real rather than computer opponents, and when there's a physical board involved.

Handwriting is natural: typeface is not. Speech is natural: but your recorded speech is not. When you hear words in your mind, you know them. But on page, on tape, they're another's voice, their implications mysterious. They're open to interpretation in a way that they weren't; and they have a likely interpretation, based on a statistics game; and they are vulnerable to common meanings.

Part of what I meant was this -- that typewritten letters are always impersonal, whereas the shortest of handwritten notes has life, character, humanity (though it might well look sickly when exposed to the light of typeface).

The same word typed and handwritten means different things to you, triggers different thoughts in your head. And this could be an argument either for typing or for longhand,

typewritting is too impersonal, and the computer is too much of an interruption.



a thought on the history of typewriting:
why would ordinary writers need writing machine?