Saturday, September 4, 2010

Do You Write or Type (or Keyboard)?

Pondering the mechanics of writing these days. Some find it odd that I write in longhand. To which I respond: doesn't a writer write? If I am typing, am I writing? Sure, many will say. To which I will trot out the old reactionary stance espousing the mystical process by which precious literary treasure travels from the writer's heart/mind/soul down the arm, through the hand, into the pen, and finally, by means of some ineffable brand of alchemy, onto the blank page. When I write on paper with a pen, I feel like a writer; on a keyboard, like a data entry clerk. No offense to those who embrace the clerkly mode.

Writing, it seems to me, is in reality 100% thinking. Dreaming. Pondering. The act of transporting those thoughts to paper (or digital memory), merely a mechanical task necessary to make your thoughts available to others; whether others find them comprehensible is another matter altogether. But the task of transforming your thoughts into a collection of characters on a page is like the task of plugging in an electric guitar. You can play that guitar to your heart's content unplugged, but no one will hear it but you. Like your thoughts. Plugging in the guitar makes your musical virtuosity available for others to experience, for better or worse.

And yet, on second thought, I must ask: is this really true? As I continue to ponder the process of writing, I must acknowledge that a great deal of the sculpting of the written word occurs only after it has been written, once you can sit back and see what you have said. Rarely does unimpeachable writing spring directly from the pen (or keyboard) on its maiden voyage onto paper (or onto a computer monitor). The act of revising is as much or more a part of writing than merely producing a first draft, which is generally found wanting. And so, while the process of writing continues to consist of thinking (it is required no less for revising than for the initial draft; well, actually, maybe somewhat less), it becomes harder for me now to dismiss the act of putting words on paper (or ...) as a mere mechanical task. That mechanical task, in revising, becomes more than merely a mechanical task but in fact becomes an element in that wondrous alchemy which is writing.

And so, which medium--the pen or the keyboard--represents the more effective or more legitimate method--and which method more legitimately entitles one to assume the august designation of Writer?

I must admit that a keyboard may serve just as effectively as a pen. Even more effectively, many would argue. It's so much easier to delete, insert, move words around, spellcheck, etc., they would argue. So much easier to evaluate what you have written when beholding it in crisp clear Times New Roman characters against a white background. And I must concede that the scribblings in my notebook are often not terribly attractive, if not frustratingly illegible. And yet, I can read what I have written; I am lucky enough, most of the time, to be a match for my own handwriting. And I can cross words out, add new ones, even tear out pages if need be. I can draw arrows from one place to another to indicate where a sentence or word or paragraph should be relocated during the transposing stage. Because yes, I do eventually type up what I have written. It is, to me, a necessary evil, but I do it. So why not do it at the very start? one may ask. To which I respond: I can take my notebook and pen with me everywhere I go. I do not require a battery or a power source. I can whip out my notebook inconspicuously in mixed company, whether on a bus or in a department store or even during a boring lecture, and I can instantly transport my thoughts onto the page. Who knows when that flash of inspiration may come? Should I risk losing a valuable line of inspired dialogue because I chose to depend upon a machine, which may prove unreliable or inconvenient, or because I have allowed myself to believe that I can write in no other way than by means of a machine?

No, I say! I will depend upon nothing and no one but myself as I strive to perform this magical and capricious process known as writing. Nothing except my little notebook and my pen. And the machine that is my brain, which I carry with me wherever I go. And when I can no longer depend on that machine ... well, friends, that will be all she wrote.

From the heartland,

D.E. Sievers

1 comment:

  1. I've had two afterthoughts on this post:

    First, that my comments should be understood to apply only to the writing of fiction, as opposed to non-fiction, for which the act of composing on a computer may be greatly assisted by the countless resources available on the web. I maintain that when inventing characters, dialogue, situations and conflicts out of one's own imagination, a computer with access to the web is likely to be more a hindrance than a help, tainting your own originality, not to mention a distraction that will take you away from your own creative focus.

    And second, I neglected to wax poetic upon the virtues of a story, novel, etc. handwritten in a notebook, which then becomes an artifact testifying to the personal style and tics of the author. Certainly the notebooks of Henry James or the songbooks of Bruce Springsteen would hold far less interest had they been instead the cleanly typeset (read: bland) pages of an electronically preserved MS Word document.

    Don't you think?

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