Creative Conundrums #6: Pen & Paper Vs Microsoft Word
A Writer's Corner series dedicated to challenges and worries throughout the creative process, doubts, queries and everything in between.
Welcomes, Shout Outs and Past Instalments of Creative Conundrums
Happy Saturday, fellow Substackers. We have made it to the weekend and, if your working week has been anything like mine, each of us deserves a cheerful round of applause (for not ending up in prison). In the past five days, I had more, — and bigger — challenges than usual. My patience was tested on multiple occasions. I am glad it is the weekend, and I can try to recharge my batteries.
In other news, on Wednesday, we said hello to March. This should make me happy (and it does, for it means lightness will grace us with its presence for longer) but is anyone else flabbergasted that we are approaching the end of Q1-23? I swear Christmas was not long ago.
For about two or three weeks, I have been pondering how to give shout outs to fellow writers regardless of however small my platform is. My options are the Creative Conundrums series or Substack Threads (I published my first ever one last Sunday and I consider it a success. There was some great interaction, and I am very thankful to those who participated. You can read the conversation here). Each week I will highlight a handful of my favourite pieces in the hope they reach a wider audience. How do you shine the light on other Substack writers? Would you rather receive these recommendations from me separately, e.g. in a Thread, or within a post, e.g. a Creative Conundrum? Let me know in the comments.
Welcome to new readers of Creative Conundrums. For convenience and your reading pleasure, the other conundrums in the series are listed below, with associated hyperlinks to make your lives easier. Apart from #1 and #2, which are inter-related, the conundrums can be read in isolation and in any order you wish.
Creative Conundrums #2: Individual Publications or Publication Sections?
Creative Conundrums #4: What Are the Substack ... Things Called?
Again, I express my thanks to new Writer’s Corner subscribers. It is wonderful to have you on board and I hope that your time with this publication is time well spent. If you have subscribed to Writer’s Corner recently but we have not interacted yet, I urge you to leave a comment and we can sort that out.
What is Creative Conundrums?
“What is Creative Conundrums”, you ask yourself. It is a series - if someone has a finer term for it, I would steal it in a heartbeat - dedicated to questions of creative nature, worrisome thoughts, plaguing insecurities, and day-to-day challenges that I wrestle with.
Over the years, I have realised that much of what we often consider to be unique to our personalities, for example the tendency to be indecisive, or circumstances, say our education background or job, resonates with others louder than we have ever imagined.
Creative Conundrums will, therefore, serve two purposes:
Aid me in un-baffling myself through endless rambling and mind backflips, and
Provide solace to you in the realisation that you are not alone in your troubles (Fingers crossed, sound practical advice will be a welcome by-product).
Preface completed, let us meet the sixth Creative Conundrum.
Creative Conundrums #6: Pen & Paper Vs Microsoft Word? Context
Writing by hand was not a matter of choice when I was a child; it was the norm and the only way of … writing anything down. I wrote by hand from the day I entered school (age six for those attending pre-school and age seven for those going straight to first grade) to the day I left (age 19, as I studied at a Language High School and ‘lost’ a year). At high school, we had ‘IT’ lessons once a week and, only in those lessons, did I ever turn on and work with a computer during my education, and / or were given assignments that had to be completed on one. Everything else required a pen and paper, including regular school tests and any formal / entry exams.
When I was 12, my dad bought a computer because he needed it for work. The purchase was solely inspired by his job; I was lucky, as the majority of my peers would not have a computer in their homes for a few years yet. I was allowed access to this magical device to play around with Word for c. an hour a week. For better or worse, I did not type anything. All I did was mess around with Shapes and Word Art (*shrugs* ). We got the ‘Internet’ when I was nearly 15. I would ‘surf the Net’ and sign petitions on Human and Animal rights. In a nutshell, my exposure to typing for the first 19 years of my life was minimal. With that in mind, I am reluctant to say I enjoyed writing by hand at the time, since there was nothing else to compare it to. Loved it or hated it, I just did it.
Needless to say, a few things changed at university. While I chose to do my lecture notes by hand, my marked assignments had to be typed. Longhand was no longer an end in itself; it was a means to an end. The end goal was always Microsoft Word, with its ease of use and speed, a delete button that left no evidence of previous existence behind, button combinations that led to swift text rearrangements, sometimes in different colours or fonts. We had entered another era.
That feeling only augmented when I commenced work; legal pads and blue, black and red BiCs were as creative and artistic as our stationery cupboard would go. This is the case in 2023, too. Everything that I need to write, day in and day out, I type. I type elaborate emails. Or short and snappy emails. I type in D3, F10 and other Excel cells. I type on elegant PPT slides, in boxes mostly, sometimes next to graphs and charts. I type comments — and tag the person who needs to action them — in legal Word documents.
T Y P E. I type my life away.
Creative Conundrums #6: Pen & Paper Vs Microsoft Word? The Actual Conundrum
The more I post on Substack, the less I interact with my notebook. There. I admitted it. Sorry. Now, let us rationalise.
In the short space of time between the penny dropping (that in some parallel universe, apparently, I must write) and signing up to Substack, I wrote in my numerous notebooks every day. Sometimes twice a day. I would wake up and do my writing before work, by hand, while the world around me and outside was snoozing (P.S I would type the stuff worth sharing but the first draft would be handwritten). I had started a couple of stories and was also very keen on writing prompts. The habit was incredibly peaceful, and a great way to begin the day: away from the screen glare — I would be staring at a large monitor from 7am to 530pm-6pm shortly! — and the tap-tap-tapping of a keyboard. It might not have been quality words but, on average, I would produce between three or four pages, sometimes six or seven, within an hour and a half or two hours.
Rediscovering the notebook and a good pen — I have an unhealthy obsession with stationery, pens being no exception — has done wonders for my mental health and my general well-being. An adult now, with a free will of my own and without anyone twisting my arm, literally and figuratively, it has been amazing to go back to basics (P.P.S. I would not ever change my school experience with reference to writing by hand; my spelling, for one, is much better thanks to it!).
But … There is always a but. Currently, I am trying to post on Substack at least once a week, preferably twice, and I find that my opportunities to have a one-on-one with the old fashioned pen and paper, are diminishing. Fast. I cannot remember when I last opened my notebooks. I simply do not have — rather than ‘choose not to make — the time to write something by hand initially, transfer to Word, edit and format. Instead, I charge right in. To stick to my self-imposed schedule, I sacrifice the quiet, rather productive bursts of creativity I have when I am hunched over sat down with my manual writing tools.
The benefits of writing by hand are well-documented and I will not summarise them in this post but it suffices to say that I am not reaping any of these at present. This makes me sad, but I am not sure what to do and how to resolve my conundrum.
Creative Conundrums #6: Pen & Paper vs Microsoft Word? Your Thoughts
This is where, I hope, you come in. It is always very rewarding to read your responses to the Creative Conundrums; your contributions are helpful on a practical level but they also demonstrate that many of us experience the same difficulties. I think this topic will resonate with a significant portion of you and, therefore, I would ask you to share your thoughts openly.
My prompts for this topic are, as follows:
Do you have a notebook(s) at all?
Is writing by hand something you are drawn to naturally, have had to re-learn (if, like me, throughout your schooling, you did all your note-taking longhand but then university and full-time employment entered the equation), do because others sing its praises or are simply uninterested in?
If you enjoy writing by hand and / or find it beneficial and prefer it to typing, how do you prepare your materials for Substack or other platforms? Do you open your notebook and grab your pen for the first draft, editing once you type it up? Alternatively, do you reach for your computer straight away?
Have you seen the time pressures of your (Substack) posting schedule clash with your preferred tools of creating? If so, how have you dealt with this previously?
Share any tips you may have for those of us that are feeling the crunch right now.
I’d love a shout-out in whatever way you see fit, Siya :)
Lovely post and some food for thought here. I have written by hand in my daily journal for over three years now (exact streak is 1,882 days). I first started to write by hand after reading Writing Down the Bones in which Natalie Goldberg walks about allowing the words to travel from brain to page without interruptions. There’s something truly organic about pen and paper for me. If I writing at length, I will use a Mac or iPad but the emotion has a different vibe for me.
Thanks for sharing /)
Hello again, Siya. I do almost all my writing in MS Word. However, some of my research begins with handwritten notes. And, importantly only to me, I suppose, I keep notebooks about my writing process about my novels, and those are all written out by hand. I keep track of where I've gone in my research, what conclusions I've reached and what decisions I've made (and. usually, why), and even what rabbit holes I've gone down.