Letter from a Young Writer

First of all, Happy Anniversary, Stonewall!  Hurray!  Now to overturn DOMA, and we'll be making some progress around here.

As the insane person I apparently am, I decided some time ago to squeeze in a road trip to meet relatives before I head to Boston to teach in the Pine Manor residency.  These are relatives I've never seen before:  my biological paternal grandmother, aunts, cousins, y más--relatives of my biological father, Len (The Truth Book, p. 1, for those in the know).  They're having a Fourth-of-July family reunion, and they generously invited me to come reune with them.

As those of you who've made the trek to meet unknown relatives or an unknown homeland can appreciate, it's an intense, overwhelming sort of thing to experience.  (I'm still absorbing the shockwaves from meeting my biological maternal relatives, and that happened over a decade ago!)  Anyway, it should be interesting.  I'm packing now.

Recently, Heather Sellers was kind enough to share with us her thoughts about writing by hand, and several of you responded.  Chris Westerman asked the great question about whether neurological research had been done to see if different parts of the brain are activated by the two different composition processes, and I'm looking into that.  To my happy surprise, I also received an email from one of Heather's former students, who wanted to share his own views about the process.

Of course, let me add the caveat that we all know plenty of people who draft beautifully on their laptops--and more power to them.  I just wanted to offer this perspective, in case you want to try it out.

Paul Morin graduated from Hope College in May 2009 and will enter Central Michigan University's M.A. English program this fall.  He is currently working on a collection of short stories, Michigan Winter.  Here's what he has to say:

I am a writing student of Heather Sellers. She mentioned that you were doing
a piece on writing by hand and that I should email you and share why I write
all of my work by hand. The simplest answer is: because it works. When I
write by hand, I am able to go through the scene more slowly and actually
experience what is going on with my characters. When I write on the computer I tend to go too quickly and leave out important parts of the story: the little details that make a story real. The 'Delete' key is the other main
hindrance for me and my writing. The ability to delete my work effortlessly
makes me feel like I have to correct any mistakes then and there or I will
look like an idiot. That takes me out of the image in my head and also
allows me to delete some of the gold from the story. If, on a snap
judgment, I delete something that I think isn't working, then I may never
have the chance to revisit that detail and discover why my subconscious
thought it was important to include. (Case in point. I have deleted and
re-written three sentences in this email already.)

Another big advantage of writing by hand is revision. When I revise, I copy
over a previous work by hand and add or take away depending on what I see.
When I do this by hand, I am able to see more and spend more time
fleshing out the details. When I write on the computer it is way too easy to
just start typing and end up copying everything over word for word.
Something about the pen allows me to make substantial revisions to the point
where a whole other story emerges from the old one. I have never been able
to do anything more than superficial changes on the computer. It is also too
easy for me to be lazy with a computer. For example, I can use the thesaurus
option in Microsoft Word and change all of my verbs, adjectives, etc. and
feel like I have done actual work. When I write by hand, that option isn't
there, and I am forced to go back into the story and re-see everything which
often brings forward things I never would have seen with something like my
Thesaurus method.

I have also noticed a marked change in the work from writers in various
writing groups when they have switched over to hand writing. The work is
fuller, has more energy and is more enjoyable to read. The whole group could
tell when people had switched. We would be reading a story and say,
"Something's different. You changed your style."

Writing by hand allows me to feel more. It makes my work better sooner,
requires less revision, and adds more depth. And in the end, it is faster
than trying to write a quality piece on the computer. To quote Heather, "The
slowest way is the fastest way."