On Writing Monday: Computer versus Pen

I know bloggers everywhere have gone over this topic again and again and again. I'm going to take a minute to talk about it too, 'cause I found this idea very interesting.

I was at Borders the other day, my heaven on earth. I picked up this book in the Reference section, which is the heavenliest part of the Borders heaven, and skimmed through it. (I have to take a moment here, and apologize to the author of this book for not committing her name to memory, but Unknown Author, you have my undying homage.)

This Unknown Author devoted a lengthy amount of time as to why writers should take the time to write by hand, on paper, with that most archaic of all writing devices, a pen... or pencil, if you prefer. Her reason?

Often, when writers put their fingers on keyboards and let their minds and fingers take off at the same time, they're writing too quickly. The thoughts emerge, are plunked down, and the writer is away on the next fragmented idea. Typing is a much more instant form of writing that's more detached from the actual physical exercise of hand writing.

Writing by hand allows you to slow down, to take a moment between words to let the next golden idea blossom. Writing by hand allows your thoughts to emerge more freely, to come out truer and more believable than typing does.

Writing by hand lets your thoughts communicate with the touch of your hand on your paper. Your mind feels the ideas flowing through your brain. Those ideas rush through your blood and stream down into the tip of your finger, from your finger through the pen and ink, and onto the paper. It's a much more living act than typing. You see, feel, hear, smell the sound of the words as they emerge from your imagination and make their way through your body to the very whiteness of the waiting paper.

For me, this is good news, 'cause I happen to LOVE writing by hand. So, I'm curious. Which is the way you find you're more likely to write? By hand? Or by keyboard?

Music and Words

All right, I'm taking a poll.

Okay, not really.

But seriously now, how many writers NEED to listen to music while they write? Hmm? Hmm? Raise your hands. C'mon, get them up there.

Okay. How many listen to vocal music while writing? How many listen to soundtracks? How many listen to classical, opera, country? What's the music you need to listen to in order to get your thought processes going?

I love to listen to soundtracks. There's something about soundtracks that let me visualize scenes, settings, and dialogue of my story through the the crescendos and rifts of the soundtracks. I can't really do vocal music, since I end up singing with the music and concentrating on my vocal delivery rather than on what I'm writing. Neither can I do opera, since I end up trying to imitate the sopranos and giving myself a bad case of the giggles. I love country music, too, and the same problem happens, where I just sing and sing instead of write and write. So, soundtracks are my thing.

Now that I've posed my question, I'm going to turn on my Voyage of the Dawn Treader soundtrack and bury myself in my WIP, Whisper Mansion.

God bless!

Finding Words In Woodstacks

So, my family and I spent an hour of the morning stacking wood. It's not my idea of the best time I could ever have, but it's vigourous and splintery, and a good workout.

As I was tossing pieces of wood to my younger sister (not really tossing, just occasionally chucking a piece to check her reflexes), I thought that writing was rather similar to harvesting wood for the winter.

See, you start with a tree, which is like a wonderful glorious story idea in your mind. Then you cut the tree down, to see how it looks from a different angle, much as you plot up different story scenarios to figure how best the story would flow. Then you cut the tree into lengths, like you cut up the storyline into different chapters, to get an idea as to how much story is hiding in those lengths.

Next, once you've loaded the "chapters" onto your truck and brought them home, you split them into logs, opening them up to see how fruitful the ideas are. Then, you throw all the wood into a pile and let it age, like a good idea has to be mulled over a little bit in order for it to work.

Then comes the stacking. You go through the pile of wood, your ideas, good and bad, that are all thrown together. Gnarly, knotty pieces of wood, or splinters, or bark bits, all the pieces of wood that are impossible to stack, you lay aside for later. Smooth, square bits, perfect stacking wood, you lay neatly in rows on the deck. The neat rows are your sentences. The occasional odd piece of wood that is perhaps slightly too long or slightly too short are your plot changes. The odd gnarled bits that you plop on top of all the good rows are your climaxes and twists of plot.

In the end, they all create one thing: a wonderful roaring fire of a story that you can enjoy every evening during winter...and hopefully with a story, every evening of the summer, as well.