I’ve missed pen and ink.
Writing requires thought, which requires time, on scales large and small. Hours spent ruminating over a character or hashing out a plot are obviously a part of writing, but so are the silences between one word and another, or one sentence and the next.
I type at just beneath 100 words a minute. When the words flow, I can transcribe a sentence almost as quickly as I think of it. Rumination is squeezed into the vanishing space just in front of the cursor.
For stream of consciousness, such speed is perfect. For action, it is often an aid. For contemplation, or love, or conversation, though, it can help or hinder.
Jack Kerouac famously wrote the first draft of On the Road on a long scroll of butcher paper so he did not have to change sheets; he wrote in a frenzy for three weeks, start to finish, and produced a classic. When he heard about this marathon, Truman Capote is supposed to have said: “That’s not writing. That’s typing.”
Capote was wrong, but then again, I’m not Jack Kerouac. I think much of my writing – and a lot of the writing on the internet in general – has a bit too much of the typing in it, at least on the first draft.
I’m writing my next short story longhand. It’s a joy to see ink glisten on paper again. Even more, it’s a joy to hear my words, one after another: to frame a sentence and then, as I write it out, to frame the next sentence – to ponder as I compose.
The result will be more carefully controlled than my usual first drafts, I think, though I have traded speed for (what I hope is) accuracy. I’d encourage others to try something similar, in writing and in life. Try to do something – practice a martial arts form, lift a barbell, read a paper, walk to the store – deliberately, and with quality. See what happens.