Computers versus Hand-writing

I love computers for writing more than using my own hand, a pen and some paper. I can type faster than I can write by hand; computers are more efficient – I can save thousands of words, of multiple works on a single computer; I can rewrite numerous times over; typing puts easy-to-read words on the page rather than my handwritten chicken-scratch; a computer is perfect to use for small questions or quick fact checks about the topic you are writing about. In short, there are a lot of pros for using a computer. Then why is it I still have a soft spot for writing by hand?

I began writing with the following romantic image lodged in my head: a writer ruminating with pad of paper on his desk, pen or pencil in hand, eyes wild with inspiration, cooped up – yet cozy – in a small bedroom with a window showing a dark, snowy night. This image also sustains me as a writer, for it really defines what writing is about. A person spilling their mind and soul on to the page with the hope the message transcends the personal, the obscure, and becomes universal. It is the image of grappling with your conscience to detail the difficult to define abstract. How does one detail a dream so that it resounds with other people? This question shows how this image, although romantic, is accurate: a person needs solitude to think, peace and quiet to create. This image shows the artist free from distraction. Although a computer is efficient, it is also a tool that can become a distraction. For a computer is also used for internet access, movie watching, game playing, music listening. Facebook! An all time distracter of thoughts! A horrible waste of time – that is, if you are checking your page seven to ten times a day. When I write by hand, my thoughts do wander when the writing hits a wall. ‘I wonder if ‘so-and-so’ responded to my message?’ I feel I must check my computer. If I am using my computer to write in that moment, I will usually check on the internet. Perhaps it’s a compulsion… After all, the computer’s already powered on. If I am writing by hand, it allows a brief moment for me to say to myself, ‘Ahh, I have to go downstairs, turn the computer on, wait for it to power up, log in etc.’ and by the time I get to ‘etc’ I toss the thought in the trash. I remember why I chose to write by hand to begin with: free of distraction.

A final thought before I close this entry… Perhaps farfetched, but a wish on the wish list nonetheless.

Handwriting’s got more character, charm, passion and texture than any font of a computer or printing press. I love handwriting – my own, but also other writer’s. When the PARIS REVIEW features an interview with a writer, they usually input an author’s draft page from a previous book or work-in-progress. You get to see the writer’s personality: if the words are written in cursive, printed, tiny or large letters, with a slant or straight; if the page has lines or no lines, doodles of varying artistic ability or free from them (Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky doodled on their draft pages). For me this reveals more about the author’s personality than an interview. You see, in an interview, you have the author responding to questions from the interviewer. It can be intimate, but it is not singularly private. An observer is present to record the subject’s words and actions. But when you see the author’s draft page, you encounter a page that was created privately, used only as a draft to be seen by the author before he or she edits the piece. It is more intimate than being a fly on the wall in the author’s workspace. Instead, it is akin to examining the inner workings of the mind. What it reveals is up to your interpretation, or the writer’s, if he is so generous to talk about the draft page. And for those writers that use typewriters or computers to draft their stories, most print out the pages and edit by hand.

A wish: that after a final draft has been printed, that the writer binds all the previous drafts – the shitty first one, the terrible second one, ridiculous third one and so on, with all errors, pencilled-in-edits, and remarks suggesting the deletion or addition of certain words – and sell the draftworks to the public. For a writer to follow initial inspiration through the labyrinthine paths of drafts to the synthesis of a final product would be invaluable. That is why I love to read QUERY SHARK. You can follow the queries as they progress from first drafts to polished final ones, and the comments that helped shaped them to become winners.

I love computers for their efficiency, but sometimes I just get tired of looking at the computer screen or becoming distracted. That’s why I love to turn off the computer, forget about Facebook and emails, pick up my notebook and write by hand. I need to remind myself of that romantic image that started my career.

Short Stories

It is a form most revered for the discipline it demands from the author. A powerful punch in a few thousand words…not for those who are verbose. I have read the great authors’ short stories – Melville and Tolstoy not so short, but shorter than their novels definitely – loved them – most notably ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor, ‘Bananafish’ by Salinger, take your pick of Poe’s works – read and reread them to find the magic, as they are indeed magical, tried to emulate their styles and tone, of which, never could I achieve what they had done. But their short stories – as I feel of all short stories – pale in comparison to novels.

I feel rotten writing that paragraph, but it’s true. ‘What’s the point?’ I ask after reading a short story. Why spend a few pages when you could prober deeper into the characters for hundreds of pages? If it is a good enough story, I wished it was a chapter in a novel. It is a literature medium that aims to be brief, to the point, provide the reader a glimpse into another world; for me, the medium can only rely on the surface. It deals with stories that are really just starting.

I do not respect short stories, as I do novels. In comparison, short stories do not delve – they remain on the surface. They do not satisfy my urge to be immersed, to remain under the surface for long periods of time. I want to be drowned by the story. A short one merely pushes my head under the surface, takes away my breath for but an instance, and allows me to surface. Oxygen! With a short story, there is no fear that I may drown. With every novel – good and bad – it is long enough to plunge me far down deep enough to choke out my want for air.

A short story is good, some would argue. But for me, a novel takes my breath away.

Why Write?

‘An Irishman is nothing without his imagination.’ – George Bernard Shaw

Imagination is what allows me to breathe! When I feel stifled by demands of life – must work tomorrow, must shop for food, must pay the bills past due, must do this, must do that – I escape by climbing up the stairs to my world, my imagination, where anything goes; I can play. Imagination is my personality.

That is why I write. It’s like a vacation for me from the demands of life. I imagine, and want to capture it. Even though Rejection has beaten me in the face, I still write, still imagine. I even tried to quit writing! But imagination pulls me back…

Why do you write?
What motivates you to keep at it?
Do you think you will ever stop?