The Beauty of Physical Writing

[Steerpike]

By author Yoon Ha Lee:

The Beauty of Physical Writing | Tor.com

Any of the rest of you like physical writing and, specifically, fountain pens? I love fountain pens. Also buy too many of them.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Mine would be the indecipherable scribble of physical writing... I'd never make it through the second draft trying to figure out what the hell I wrote, heh heh.

 

[skip.knox]

Yes, me. I, too, love fountain pens, for a practical reason and for aesthetics.

The practical reason is that I don't have to press down hard. I have arthritis in both hands, so this is a pleasure. I could use gel pens, and have, but the fountain pens simply are more comfortable.

As for aesthetics, it's mainly about ink. I'm a sucker for colors, and with fountain pens I can get a huge range of writable colors.

I have three Lamy pens and two Jinhaos. The latter are ridiculously cheap, but they look great and write well. And for about $5 per pen, why not buy a few? Ink is expensive, true, but even though a 2oz bottle can run $20, it will last a long time.

I've written before about why I write first drafts and background notes longhand, so I won't repeat all that here. Writing it with a fountain pen simply makes the experience more pleasant.

 

[Insolent Lad]

When I still wrote by hand, my drafts were far from beautiful. Stuff crossed out, arrows pointing here and there, lines written sideways up and down the margins. And all of it in sort of a half-written, half-printed hand. I and the word processor were meant for each other.

 

[Steerpike]

When I still wrote by hand, my drafts were far from beautiful. Stuff crossed out, arrows pointing here and there, lines written sideways up and down the margins. And all of it in sort of a half-written, half-printed hand. I and the word processor were meant for each other.

I do the crossing-out and arrow drawing as well. Can't do that in a word processor.

 

[Steerpike]

Yes, me. I, too, love fountain pens, for a practical reason and for aesthetics.

The practical reason is that I don't have to press down hard. I have arthritis in both hands, so this is a pleasure. I could use gel pens, and have, but the fountain pens simply are more comfortable.

As for aesthetics, it's mainly about ink. I'm a sucker for colors, and with fountain pens I can get a huge range of writable colors.

I have three Lamy pens and two Jinhaos. The latter are ridiculously cheap, but they look great and write well. And for about $5 per pen, why not buy a few? Ink is expensive, true, but even though a 2oz bottle can run $20, it will last a long time.

I've written before about why I write first drafts and background notes longhand, so I won't repeat all that here. Writing it with a fountain pen simply makes the experience more pleasant.

I just bought a Lamy. It's a great pen. I also have a cheap Pilot that works surprisingly well, two Waterman pens, and two Cross pens. And lots of bottles of different colored ink.

 

[skip.knox]

The paraphernalia is the attraction, isn't it? After all, with the computers, all you get is an icon.

 

[Mythopoet]

OMG fountain pens!! My husband and I are seriously obsessed with them. Also ink and naturally good paper to use them on. I have 4 pens that I keep inked for regular use and a glass dip pen. I have a Lamy calligraphy pen with a 1.1 italic nib that I love. (Actually 2 of them because I it and ordered a new one and then the first one showed up.) But my favorite is probably my Shaeffer Ferrari which is bright shiny red and has the Ferrari symbol on it. It writes so smoothly. And I like being able to say "My other pen is a Ferrari" and then giggle to myself.

We've got several bottles of ink and a whole drawer full of samples. Some of my favorites to use are De Atramentis Johann Sebastian Bach, Diamine Ancient Copper and my newest acquisition, Sailor Jentle Yama-dori.

As for paper, I buy a lot of Rhodia notebooks because the paper is nice and they aren't too expensive. I also like to use Filofax notebooks as worldbuilding notebooks as the paper can be easily taken out and moved around for organization purposes.

 

[Steerpike]

Oooh, the Sheaffer Ferrari does look nice. I'll have to add that to my list.

Below is my most recent ink (bought largely because I like the bottle, but it works well too and was recommended as a good choice for my Pilot pen--a nice, light greyish color).

I have a dip pen as well, but I don't use it nearly as often as the fountain pens.

 

[Insolent Lad]

I do the crossing-out and arrow drawing as well. Can't do that in a word processor.

Don' t need to—can just grab the passages with the mouse and move 'em around now. I do that a lot, being a non-linear writer who is constantly revising.

 

[skip.knox]

The editing capabilities of the electronic word processor <grin> have certain drawbacks. Yes, I can delete a word or phrase and it's gone; with pen and ink I have to cross it out, which can make for a messy manuscript. The drawback with the computer is this: when I delete it, it's gone. Countless times I have crossed out a word or phrase only to decide later that whatever I replaced it with was not quite right and the original should be kept. I write KEEP with an arrow. With the computer, once it's gone, I can no longer retrieve that original word or phrase.

Given the malleable nature of a first draft, being able to line out, re-line, redline, underline, squiggly line and make sundry other marks in free form provides me with a flexibility the computer does not. The computer is, however, the bees knees when it comes to working on subsequent drafts. I shudder to imagine myself re-writing a hundred thousand words by hand multiple times. There, I just shuddered.

Also, for reasons that I cannot explain, I feel more creative with pen and paper. There, I feel myself to be standing in an open field. With the computer, I feel I am standing in a hallway. Don't know why, but there it is.

Plus, doodling.

 

[Steerpike]

Yes, I use arrows and other annotations for a number of things beyond "move this here." You could use the note function in a word processor, but I find it clunky. Plus, I enjoy the mental stimulation of writing by hand.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

That's well and good for those of us whose handwriting does not look like the stumbling of a drunken pigeon.

 

[Steerpike]

That's well and good for those of us whose handwriting does not look like the stumbling of a drunken pigeon.

Oh, mine looks like hell. But I can decipher it (usually), even if no one else can!

 

[TheKillerBs]

The editing capabilities of the electronic word processor <grin> have certain drawbacks. Yes, I can delete a word or phrase and it's gone; with pen and ink I have to cross it out, which can make for a messy manuscript. The drawback with the computer is this: when I delete it, it's gone. Countless times I have crossed out a word or phrase only to decide later that whatever I replaced it with was not quite right and the original should be kept. I write KEEP with an arrow. With the computer, once it's gone, I can no longer retrieve that original word or phrase.

Given the malleable nature of a first draft, being able to line out, re-line, redline, underline, squiggly line and make sundry other marks in free form provides me with a flexibility the computer does not.

MS Word has a revising feature in which it keeps track of every single change to the document. I expect other word processors have similar functions.

 

[Ruru]

These pens are beautiful! I love writing by hand, and like Skip Knox I find its allows me a more creative, organic process. Plus definitely doodling . In the past I've been a religious pencil writer, but that back fired when I went back to old notes and found them too faded to read! Ink pens are so lovely to write with, and they're great for the odd pen-line margin drawing to. I've been writing first drafts on the computer recently, mostly as a way of organizing my notes a bit better, but I've been procrastinating a lot about actually writing new drafts. Maybe its time to pick up the old pen again.

Recently I stumbled on to Scrivener, and its snapshot function is pretty good for taking a quick copy of a segment, so you can edit and go back to the old version if necessary later. Enjoying the program so far, especially for working with big documents, I often find Word gets a bit fidgety when you get up past the 50 ish page mark, though that might just be my computer!

 

[Steerpike]

On the rare occasion I write a first draft on computer, if I get blocked grabbing my pen invariably gets me past it. Maybe it will help get you moving again, Ruru!

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Oh, mine looks like hell. But I can decipher it (usually), even if no one else can!

That's what's important, I suppose!

 

[pmmg]

When i write by hand i prefer a pencil. Being left handed i understandably hate pens. I would never write a story by hand though. Very often my handwriting is so bad even i cant read it.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

I do both--write scenes out first with a mechanical pencil [often in non-chronological order] and then type them out in the right order.