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Choose your tools
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you a pen person or a computer person? Seriously consider trying both. The
rhythm of scratching a pen nib across a piece of paper has been with humanity
for many hundreds of years, the speedy bounce of a cursor along a lighted
screen for only a few decades. Some believe the ease of word processing has
improved speed but not writing content and style. Perhaps you are so used to
the responsive hare-like dash of the computer that the old-fashioned technology
of the pen makes you feel like a lumbering tortoise. But remember who won the
race.
Many writers—J.K. Rowling is one—still write long-hand
and transcribe their words onto a computer as their second draft. I strongly
recommend that computer junkies try writing first drafts with paper and pen.
It’s a sane, connected rhythm. And typing that material into the computer
affords a whole new view of the work.
After several PCs, my first Mac, stylish white
MacZine, became my best friend. I loved her and her silvery replacements
MacTruck and FleetwoodMac. But for most first drafts, I still write longhand. I
choose my pens carefully —a thick nib, a slender carriage, easy ink flow, and
black ink. There are three pots stuffed with pens beside me rightnow, and
pencils, too, newly sharpened. Hemingway did all his first drafts in pencil.
Neil Gaiman uses classy Water-man fountain pens. Mmmm.
What about paper? Thick, thin,
recycled, lined, unlined? Big
yellow pads or pretty French notebooks? If you use a computer, can you write a
whole piece without printing, or do you need to print regularly so you can see
words on paper? Don’t forget all those nifty little devices beloved of paper
nuts: erasers, Wite-Out, rulers, paper clips, file folders, Post-it notes, Sharpie markers. Perhaps, at the beginning
of the writing process, you could use large sheets of unlined paper and crayons
or felt pens, drawing pictures to access another part of the brain. Later, you
could make sense of a chaotic manuscript by sticking file cards to the wall or
spreading them across the floor or stringing them on a clothesline.
What else might you need? Scanner, hole-punch,
bulle-tin board, backscratcher? Rock collection? Pictures of your family or
guru for inspiration—or would that be too distracting? Music? Noise-cancelling
earphones?
And then there’s one of the most important tools of
all: a wastepaper basket or recycling bin. Use yours fearlessly. I have in my
office an inspiring picture of the great New Yorker essayist E.B. White writing in his country cabin. There is
nothing in the room where he works except a plain plank desk and bench, a
manual typewriter, pencils—and a very large barrel for his rejected pages.
Make the effort to choose the
right tools. This is the fun
part—strapping on your tool belt and getting ready to work. Aldous Huxley,
asked how to become a novelist, replied, “The first thing is to buy quite a lot
of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen. After that you merely have to write.”
After you learn to write, your whole object is
to convey everything, every sensation, sight, feeling, place and emotion to the
reader. To do this you have to work over what you write. If you write with a
pencil, you get three different sights at it … First when you read it over;
then when it is typed you get another chance to improve it, and again in the
proof. Writing it first in pencil gives you
one-third more chance to improve it … It also keeps it fluid longer so
that you can better it easier.
Ernest Hemingway
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