I write in pen and read in pencil

A Hemingway original manuscript

I made a discovery last night; a discovery I feel is important on my journey as a writer, which is why I cannot believe it didn't occur until last night.

My writing takes on a completely different voice when done by hand than when I type it out. I like the handwritten voice a lot better, yet all of my major creative endeavours have been exclusively typed.

There’s this writer’s adage that says, “if it sounds like writing, write it again” and I’ve always had that in my mind when editing; I’ve struggled to make it more conversational. But it’s hard, you know? Writing is hard. Writing so it doesn’t sound like writing is harder... but less so when writing by hand. For me, at least.

What does this mean for my current body of work?

I can’t help but think had I painstakingly written by hand this whole time, I could have been infinitely more successful by now, or at least more satisfied with what I’ve produced. Instead of a hard drive as a graveyard of abandoned novels and half-finished plays, I could have a book case of scrawled original manuscripts of bestsellers. Wishful thinking, hopeful and full of regrets – just the way I like it.

I have this notebook. It’s my first real book of its kind and I only started writing in it a few months ago but it’s already half full. It’s leather bound and substantial-looking. I use a black gel pen that is really black when I write in it, because that feels substantial. The combination makes everything I write in it seem substantial too. It’s probably not the case, but it still excites me.

When I flip through it, I can tell the mood I was in on each page. Sometimes the scrawl is barely legible, like I was writing furiously, unable to wait for the ideas to come out on the page. Other times there’s frequent scribbles and cross outs, like I was meandering through what I was trying to say as I said it. Usually at the top of the page the cursive is looping and neat and as your eyes venture down the page, the loops get lazier and a mess escalates as my hand gets tired (which I find to be something of a satisfying, accomplished feeling - the hand cramp.)

And sometimes, when I look through it, I wonder if any of these fragmented ideas will turn into something important and I don’t even know it yet. And maybe, in a few hundred years – or maybe even just after I’ve died – those manuscripts will be sold for 16 million dollars to some bespectacled literary collector. At least I hope it would be after my death. The thought of someone flipping through my words and noting where I’d crossed out the word “anxiously” and replaced it with “uneasily” makes me blush anxiously uneasily.

By the way, if you wondering, I wrote this out by hand first.