It’s strange to be typing right now, and not just because I have temporarily lost the use of one of my fingers.
When I was younger, I carried paper with me everywhere. I always had a few extra sheets in my workbooks or binders so I could write at school. When I got a little older, I began to collect journals to keep my stories together. I always wrote a scene down on paper first, and then typed up a second draft. It took longer, but I enjoyed the simple act of pouring over my own written imagination.
By the time I was getting used to my college courses, I couldn’t even pretend that I had the free time to do much writing anymore, and certainly not writing things down twice. Sadly, this means that my journals have held nothing but notes and the occasional scene scribbled down while at doctor’s offices. I don’t even use word process anymore. I usually just type everything in google docs or evernote.
All that changed last week. I don’t know if my brain was particularly slow that day or I was tired of sitting at a desk or it was just long overdue…it was probably a combination of all three…but I found myself stretched out on the floor beside a stack of loose notebook paper and writing with *gasp* a pen.
The words just flew out of that pen. I spent half that day and then my free time over the next several days on the floor, crossing out one adjective after another, worrying that I’d misspelled everything, writing sentences out past the red lines until all I could see was black scrawlings. By the time I reached a stopping point, I had written 35 pages. I know that’s not much when typed up, but it felt amazing to me.
I have sense typed everything up in evernote and thrown away the papers. I was more afraid I’d lose a page more than anything else. But I think I’ll be returning to my journals very soon. There really is nothing that can compare to gripping a pen in one hand and running the other over paper. It’s kind of like the difference between a nook and a paperback. Both get the job done, but it’s really all about the feeling.
What about y’all? Do you use journals, a laptop, or a combination? Why?
The Golden Dragon's Library 