The War Between the Pen and the Machine

Newsletter 13  

Thursday 14^th May 2015

Hello again.

Thank you for returning to my Newsletter 

If this is your first time, welcome.

Stop Press:

 Further note on The War Between the Pen and the Screen 

Sharon (see below)  Sent me a card originating in Te Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge a sheet from the Thomas Hardy manuscript for Jude the Obscure (see below) with the note  Now wouldn't this have been so much easier on screen?

Thank you dear Sharon for further illustrating my point.  Messy as it is, this document  is infinitely more creative and interesting than  a bland, neutral PC file.

Here we have the hand of the genius who wrote this iconic nove  and the tentative direction of his creative  thought process. (I see his original title was The Simpleton...) 

I am now even more compelled to think that 'easier' is not always 'better'.

*******

Now back to this week’s newsletter where I return to the theme of beginning your writing project by drafting in long hand. Here on my Newsletter and in my workshops I encourage writers – new and experienced to write their first draft by hand –preferably in ink or a very soft gel pen.

However my good friend, the Northern Echo and EDP columnist Sharon Griffiths, rather disagrees with me.

I think of Sharon as the Voice of the North and the East. She has written witty, informed and insightful columns and features in the redional and national press on every subject under the sun - from family issues, through local and national politics, through consumer and moral issues for many years.

And in the middle of all this  Sharon has fitted in two  well-received novels  of contemporary life.

 As a consequence of our discussion on the virtues for the creative writer of the computer as opposed to pan and notebook Sharon has to offer a comment on this for my Writing Process Newsletter. 

Looking at her words, which demonstrate as  intuitive and creative process as I would wish, and have advocated in this newsletter. It’s just that her computer is her vehicle of choice.

I also feel that as well as having this brilliant mind Sharon is the ultimate multi-tasker. We ink-pen-wielders are a weaklings beside her magnificently confident take on the creative process of writing.

And I feel sure that there will be many writers out there who will totally agree with her.

Sharon has called her piece 

'SUPER SCREEN'

‘There is something gloriously sensuous about ink from a fountain pen flowing into words across a page – a physical as well as mental delight.

But good grief, it’s an awful waste of time and effort and energy. Not to mention trees.

 Why on earth would you want to write stuff out in longhand just to type it all up all over again?  You might just as well wash clothes by hand before putting them in the machine.

The computer screen has liberated us from such tedium.  No more scrawled notes, arrows, queries, crossings out, insertions and illegible or inexplicable notes to self, or overflow notes on other pages or random scraps of paper. Not forgetting the doodles of daisies all around the margins.

Instead, for more than thirty years I have written directly onto a screen, thousands of words each week so that the keyboard feels almost directly linked to my brain. Maybe it’s all that practice that makes it seem so easy.

Even so, what goes on the screen is rarely the first draft.  I write first of all in my head.  All the time. Everywhere.  I never stare at a blank screen but instead go for a walk, make the beds, cook supper.  I swim every morning, mentally writing columns or chapters as I splash up and down.

 Once I type them up, I edit them as they go – I can draft and re-draft, rewrite a sentence, shift the emphasis, add another thought, all instantly in seconds. The screen is a constant shifting image of blue as I cut, paste, delete, save for later.

It’s so easy! I can move text around instantly – its instinctive now - far quicker than those squiggles and scrawls and arrows and much more legible.

The other joy of writing directly on the screen is that you can see your work immediately as a finished product.

This makes it far easier to see the flaws.  Words on a screen are not as forgiving as those in a notebook.  They look more professional so expectations are raised.   They are already distanced from me and so I immediately judge them more harshly and dispassionately than those written in my own familiar scrawl. 

On top of that, they have to cook.

Because everything is so quick and easy and instant, I have to build in time for reflection, for second thoughts, time to read almost as an outsider.  I call that cooking time.

So unless deadlines are screaming, I always leave a column for a few hours before sending it.  A book written on screen needs to cook for at least a month before its final edit.

But at least in that time I can be doing other useful and interesting things – not peering blearily at scribbled chaos. Why on earth would anyone want to do that?

Sharon Griffiths.

 (In answer to your last question, Sharon,  I would say ME! Wendy)

I think you have heard enough from me in earlier posts here on the subject of hand drafting. As you know this is my method and I would advocate it.

So I thought I’d quote another point of view from an interesting piece by Lee Rourke in the Guardian. 

His article mentions writing implements as ‘fetish objects’ which exactly matches my view of them. Although Sharon might say ‘Good grief!’ and mention the fate of trees.

Rourke says: ‘In longhand, the hand moves freely across the page in a way no amount of computer jiggery-pokery can muster. I think the economy of writing longhand is to do with its pace.’

He quotes Alex Preston. "I think each writer, and each novel, has an inherent pace," he says. "It's important to find a tool that matches the pace of the writing. I composed my first book in a computerised blur; for the second, I wanted to be more scrupulous, more thoughtful. This is the pace of longhand. Writing with the fetish objects – the Uni-ball pen, the Rhodia notebooks –and watching the imprint of pen on page reminds us that writing is a craft. If everything is done on keyboards and fibre-optic wires, we may as well be writing shopping lists or investment reports."

And  Rourke goes on: The whole process keeps me in touch with the craft of writing. It's a deep-felt, uninterrupted connection between thought and language which technology seems to short circuit once I begin to use it.

So there you are!

Some of you, on reading Sharon’s words, will be clapping your hands with delight and reaching for your keyboards 

Others might be regretting that – at my urging - they abandoned their laptops in favour of a notebook and a gel-pen.

Still others will still be delighted at finding their voice at last  through the visceral medium of pen and paper

I have to say that there is room in our Writing Process Palace for all-comers whatever their methods. All you have to do is to love your writing, enjoy your intuitive creativity and finish that damned book!

Do you have a view on this? I’d be interested to know.