Writing by hand

 

Though all the editing and formatting of my novel As Winter Came and Went was, is and will be done on my computer, the first draft was written by hand, on actual, real paper. And the first draft of this novel’s sequel, which I’m currently writing, is also being done by hand. Why is that? 

I like writing. No, not being a writer (well, that too, but not just). I mean writing in the “physical” sense of the term. I like the feel of ink flowing onto the paper. I like holding a pen. I like my manuscript to have a physical incarnation. I like seeing it grow physically, the single page that started it becoming a dozen pages then a whole stack of them. I like to feel the weight of a nice, plump little manuscript. I like to have a tangible proof of my achievement. 

Another good thing with writing by hand is that there’s only one way you can go: forward. Unlike when you’re writing on a computer, you cannot go back and edit/delete/move a whole section. So, in a way, you have to think, to decide if those words you’re going to write are really worth anything, if you do want to waste a whole page and your time writing them. And at the same time I find that this tends to ward off the dreaded blank page syndrome: you go on writing, knowing that now is not the time to edit, that you’ll have all the opportunity to do that later. It prompts reflection, but also a definite sense of freedom. 

Writing my first draft by hand means that when I edit it, I have to do it thoroughly: I do it at the same time as I type it on the computer. It is very time consuming, but it forces me to go through the manuscript, to see what works and what doesn’t. When I typed the different chapters of As Winter Came and Went, I deleted whole scenes that were present in the handwritten manuscript. And I was also able to correct incoherencies: because it had taken me so long to complete this manuscript, many things had changed, concerning the plot, concerning the characters, between the first page and the last. Since this round of edit was more like a rewrite of a story, I was able to tie loose ends and include those changes relatively smoothly. 

But my favourite aspect of writing by hand is that you can write anywhere. Outdoors, in a garden, by the sea... Sitting on the floor, sprawling on a sofa… All you need is a pen and a piece of paper. No need to worry about your laptop or your phone’s battery. No need to worry about saving your work on an USB disk, when it’s midnight and you’ve just finished writing a scene of your novel and all you want is to go to bed. No need to worry about Internet connection. It is a way of regaining a freedom that the electronic world took from us, at the same time as it gave us remarkable advantages.

I have to admit that when I first started to write the manuscript of As Winter…, I wrote by hand much, much quicker than I typed, which meant that I was able to write by hand as fast as I was thinking. Now I type much faster, but I still prefer writing my first draft by hand, for all the reasons named above. 

However, writing by hand does not only have advantages! If, like me, you like writing outdoors, rain can be a hazard (but it would be a problem even with a laptop…). Or the wind… There have been several occasions where I’ve had to run after pages from my manuscript which were flying away, all in different directions (a good thing I almost always number them!)… And inevitably, as your novel grows and your story develops, the number of pages does the same until the whole thing becomes rather…unwieldly. But isn’t it the proof you’re actually achieving something?