Friday, October 16, 2015

Pen & Paper

you can almost always feel more wonderful when writing if you use a quill pen and ink well:
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    A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I do all of my story writing on my laptop. I typed faster than I wrote; it was easier to change things in Word, which helped me loosen up and get into the flow; it was just more convenient…blah, blah, blah. All that is still mostly true. Typing is faster and definitely more environmentally friendly when you have handwriting like a gigantic chicken’s (4 handwritten pages = about 2 typed pages for me). Instead of ripping out entire pages and starting over, you hit the backspace key. In short: I thought I was done with handwritten first drafts.

   I’m not. Here’s what changed my mind.

   A couple weeks ago I started a new project. It was going to be about girl power and superheroes and steampunk, and I was incredibly excited to start writing it. So, I began typing it into Google Docs…and tanked after just one chapter.

   About a week later I started another project that I was also incredibly excited about (my ideas tend to come in batches). This one was about girl power and zombies. I began typing it into Google docs and—same story—burned out near the middle of the second chapter.

   A week after that I was working on developing another idea I had; one I’d had for ages and really, really wanted to do right. And I began to think of all the false starts I’ve had over the past couple of years, and how they all turned out basically the same—after only a few pages I lost confidence in the idea and just couldn’t think of any way to improve it.

You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side.When Mr. Kleon was asked to address college students in upstate New York, he shaped his speech ...:

   Around the same time I was also rereading Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon (if you haven’t already read this book, you need to) and I got to chapter four. Chapter four is all about using your hands, and in it Austin Kleon recommends doing your first drafts on paper— “The computer brings out the uptight perfectionist in us”.

   I don’t think that my uptight perfectionist really needs any help being brought out, but after reading that chapter I remembered how much fun I used to have handwriting my first drafts. Sure, they were all crap, but everything I wrote back then was crap and at least I had fun. So I decided that for my newest project, I’d try to go back to using a pen and a legal pad, and see what happened.

   I’m not far in enough yet to tell if it will stick—and if I won’t end up abandoning this one, too—but I am having a TON more fun scribbling on wide-ruled paper than I ever did typing into Google Docs, at least recently. My writing is flowing, not dribbling out in bits and pieces like it usually does on the computer. And at the end of a session, when I sit back and look at the hunk of paper sitting on my desk, I feel like I’ve actually created something.

   I’m not saying that all my first drafts will be handwritten from now on (but who knows?) or that the computer is some kind of demon instrument. It’s just that different writers find different methods that work for them, and I’m still very much in the process of finding one that works for me. Something about seeing my terrible handwriting on paper makes it easier for me to accept the imperfections in the first draft, and once I can do that, actually finishing it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. And that’s a wonderful feeling.

Make a pencil set to give as a gift. Cut paper that is 1" by the length of the pencil. Modgepodge the underside of the paper and wrap. Once it is dry, sharpen.:
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10 comments:

  1. Yay for you finding a better way to channel your thoughts for now! I use a mix of computers and paper -- it's terrible to revise on paper because either I kill the environment by printing out my entire ms double spaced and rewrite it in the spaces, or I try to memorise my entire novel and rewrite it on paper. Just, no. But for first drafting I do it everywhere, and a tiny notebook I carry everywhere is just perfect. But never be limited by the means if you have a story to tell!

    PS: Your story ideas are FASCINATING and I'd love to hear more about them :D

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    1. Revising on paper is pretty tough--I wonder if I'll be attempting that next! But I finally feel like I've found a process that's working for me, so if that's what it takes...
      Thank you!!! I have about three ideas that I'm most interested in writing/developing right now; at some point I might try to rustle up a post about them. Thanks for your interest; it really does mean a lot :)

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  2. I'm glad you found something that seems to jog your creative brain a bit better. Sometimes I've needed to mix up my own process, wiggle around until I find something that grooves.
    Happy writing!
    (Btw- all your different "girl power" notions sound fantastically fun. ^^)

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    1. My process tends to switch up a bit for each project that I work on, so you'd think I'd be more used to that (I'm not). But I do think that changing processes is one of the most fun and interesting parts of writing.
      Thanks! Even though they were all false starts, these are ideas that I badly want to get back to and do right. Hopefully you'll be hearing more about them in the future.

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  3. Just yesterday I scrapped what I had so far of my sleeping beauty retelling novella (for the third and hopefully last time!), and decided to restart and write the whole thing by hand. So last night I wrote the first 500 words by hand in one of my notebooks with my favorite pen and It. Was. Magical. I'm pretty determined to hand write the whole thing. Granted, it won't be as long as a novel as it will end up around 20k, give or take a few thousand words, but perhaps it will be a stepping stone to writing a whole novel by hand. We're kind of opposite when it comes to the size of our handwriting. :) My handwriting is really tiny and it only took me one page of a marble composition notebook to write 500 words. Sometimes my mom gets annoyed at me for writing that small, heehee.

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    1. Ooh, I wish I had your problem! My handwriting is humongous, so every time I write on paper I feel like a huge threat to the environment. It's so cool that you're writing a manuscript out by hand, too, though, and I LOVE fairy tale retellings! I haven't read too many retelling Sleeping Beauty, either, which makes me especially curious about yours :)

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  4. I... am not really a writer yet, so I can't really comment, BUT I think handwriting and typing both have their advantages. I'm hoping to write A LOT more next year, so I'm planning on getting one of those creative prompts books and work my way through that by hand, and then just use the laptop for drafting/rewriting/NaNo. That way I get the best of both worlds!
    Beth x
    www.thequietpeople.com

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    1. I'm hoping to mix a bit of both for an either/or sort of writing experience. And writing prompts are super fun and a great way of getting into the habit of writing every day. As much as I love going back to writing by hand, I don't think I could ever completely abandon my laptop!

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  5. I don't handwrite many serious novel first drafts, but I did handwrite one of the drafts of my current WIP a while ago just so I could play with it on paper! It was also a lot more portable, and that was nice. :) I do love the idea of working on writing with your hands, though, and I approve... I'll have to check out Steal Like an Artist soon! :D Thanks for the rec!

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    1. It's an awesome book--super fun and encouraging. I hope you like it! Notebooks and legal pads are a lot more portable than laptops, and I love the feel of playing with a story on paper. Thanks for stopping by!

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