To Find Your Medium

Edmundson begins his chapter “To Find Your Medium” with the suggestion of asking a writer how he writes - not the ritualistic beginning (pencil sharpening, meditation, etc), but the technology itself. Is it a specific pen, pencil, yellow legal pad? To get on the writer's good side, he states, ask them the history of their writing technology. The pencil or pen is an extension of the hand, so the computer is an extension of the brain? Maybe, he says. He states how choosing the right tool for you is just as important as choosing the genre or style. His favorite writers wrote in longhand, hurling tiny cannonballs of unwanted work which had been full of ink blots and crossed out sentences, only to keep what was salvageable in order to send it off to a typist. He would then tear the new page apart only to have it typed again for clean copies.

Yet, he admits the magic of the computer for writers, be it to spellcheck, save back or shoulder muscles from soreness, etc. You can save multiple copies of your work to compare. However, typing a first draft looks too clean, too finished he warns, and you won't want to start over or mess with it too much. Write one draft, in pencil or pen, and go into the second from the top down; and for heaven's sake, dress appropriately (whatever makes you feel relaxed) and fix your posture! With pen or pencil, writing is magic; direct connection with your words is sublime.

            Indeed, many well-known authors adhere to writing longhand, for many reasons. Research even suggests that pen users “reframed concepts in a more meaningful way” (Sanders 14). Whether it be writing notes for a history class, jotting down a grocery list before scrambling off to the store, or getting hit by inspiration and having to scribble phrases across a blue napkin during a baby shower (I might still have that napkin), the manual art of writing seems to strengthen our conceptualization skills and memory. For me, a simple composition notebook – those lined pages free of a spiral binding, the nemesis of lefties – does the trick. That Queen of Magical Prose, J.K. Rowling, prefers to write her first drafts in longhand with black ink. When she finds herself inspired, sometimes she is short on paper. “The names of the Hogwarts Houses were created on the back of an aeroplane sick bag,” she told reporters. “Yes, it was empty.” The subconscious suggestion of vomit, for writers who draft in longhand, feel its sickly presence when face-to-face with that daunting blank computer screen.

            "A blank computer screen makes me want to throw up," explains Niven Govinden. "It's not conducive to good writing.” Good writing, for Govinden, doesn’t happen on a laptop. “A lined notebook,” she admits, “is less judgmental” (Verrastro). Truly, the thought and action of filling up a blank book with your own thoughts, stories, and personal confessions, is more thrilling than saving document after document on a computer hard drive. True, there is an ease with computer processing. Jordan Mechner, author and graphist artist, believes his most productive moments happen with a pencil in hand. “The trap of technology,” he says, is that “it’s so easy to move words and sentences around in Word or Scrivener or Final Draft that it feels like writing, even if what I’m actually doing would rate only a 2 on the scale in which 10 is ‘getting an idea and writing it down.' Sometimes, technology is more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to the creative process, and a pencil is just the cure” (Verrastro).

            Writing in pencil, some argue, also helps to express personality, or emotion more clearly. Handwritten journal entries can be a form of therapy. Psychologists encourage clients to take up journal writing; between appointments, it can help alleviate depression or anxiety. In this way, writing helps with emotion channeling. With pen or pencil, the feelings are raw, less constrained. You can get a better sense of the feeling behind the words; if I were to reread passages from my old high school journal, the cramped, half-cursive scrawl, with imprints deep into the page, would indicate frantic, angry writing. Or perhaps, I skipped a few pages, I could find a passage written with a more measured pace, full of short, simple sentences. This pattern is more likely written during a depressed state of mind. Emotion is substantial, especially for creative-based writing. One of the points of daily writing is to make sense of your experiences to better enhance your writing. Computer based writing, or even text messaging, seems to envelop more automatic writing. Besides, this is the reason we felt the need to add emoticons to text messages, to be sure. To restore emotion to text-based communication.  I myself am a strong supporter of emoticon dropping.

            Other authors seem to agree with the emotional connection, or better retention, of longhand. Annie Dillard had about 74 boxes filled with scrapbooks, journals, notecards, high school diaries, and letters to editors and friends. She used 1,100 notecards which she shuffled and filed by category. Vladimir Nabokov followed the same pattern – he utilized a cut-and-paste process for his index cards, shuffling scenes and things more easily.

            Another factor to your writing process, as Edmundson suggests, is your posture. It can help or hinder your writing. Truman Capote, author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, wrote mostly while lying down. Disastrous as that sounds, for someone who prefers sitting propped up against three pillows while sprawled against the couch, its good advice for saving those back muscles.

            Your attire, he also stresses, can influence your writing. Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You, claims she writes the best in a pair of red earrings, because most of her wardrobe consists of black clothing. When it comes to dress, writers seem to either go all out or not at all. Michael Showalter, author of Mr. Funny Pants, writes naked, but only “once in a while” (DailyBeast.com). I fall between the two: I tend to wear my favorite baggy red-and-black flannel, and I also (for whatever reason) feel the need to pull my hair back just before I start writing. Whatever your niche, find it. To complicate his reasoning, I wish to add how temperature plays its part in the writing game. If you are too cold, you’re going to change clothes. You’re going to fidget in your seat. You’re going to make coffee. If you are too hot, you’re going to fall asleep. Trust me, it happens. Recognize what keeps you comfortable; trust your kind of “medium.”

            For the use of pen or computer-based writing, Edmundson hit the mark, yet I’m going to complicate his ideas a bit. The use of pen writing, I admit, does create a deep-felt connection with your words in a different way that technology seems unable to imitate. However, many fresh writers of today, those who were taught how to type and navigate the keyboard during their adolescent years, thrive off computer processing. Since 2013, children have been required to learn to type and write in print. Though the abundance of written work is much more extensive online, the technological tools today seem to help, rather than hinder, their writing. Personally, all of my academic-based writing was typed. I edited as I went along. Speed, especially during college, is everything. When the workload is fast-paced, who would want to take the time to write anything down? Besides notetaking, all of my work is saved onto my laptop. Computers are less bulky, less cluttered, than several frayed notebooks of uncategorized freehand which occasionally resemble hieroglyphics. Why? Because the thoughts and notes were always written, at least for me, in a flurry of rushed articulation. 

            For good writing, it seems, one must find a balance of longhand and typed revision. How to choose between the two mediums, you ask? That’s certainly up to you. If your work delves in research or essay writing, typing your prose could be key. If you are fashioning together a poem and completing a journal entry for self-investigation, longhand seems to work best. Both mediums, regardless of advantage or pitfalls, work well for the writing you wish to pursue.

            Writing mediums have been in constant flux since its beginning. From Sumerian tablets to the Phoenician alphabet, from the invention of paper to the printing press, typing seems to be the latest trend in a very long story. Consider, also, the act of reading texts online or in a textbook or novel. We don’t consider whether what we are reading was written longhand or word-processed. What we really want is a record of our thoughts, and more time to think.

  

Works Cited

• Rourke, Lee. "Why Creative Writing is Better with a Pen." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 03 Nov. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2017.
• Sanders, Laura. “Students Retain Information Better with Pens than Laptops.” Science News, vol. 185, no. 11, 2014, pp. 14–14., www.jstor.org/stable/24366121.
• Saverin, Diana. "The Thoreau of the Suburbs." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 05 Feb. 2015. Web. 19 Apr. 2017.
• Verrastro, Gina. "Five Famous Authors Who Write Longhand." Pencils.com. N.p., 10 Oct. 2013. Web. 19 Apr. 2017.
• "What Writers Wear When They Write at Home: John Cheever, Jane Smiley, Jennifer Egan & More." The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast Company, 17 June 2011. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.