the Observation Deck (day 6) :: "switch instruments"
Makes the very good point that it can be helpful to change your style of working, to try typing or hand-writing or computer or dictation. I think anything that knocks you out of your routine can probably help to jumpstart the creative process. Referencing Prentiss' point about jazz, I'm pretty sure I've read about a jazz musician who switched from one horn to another while he was in the process of working out a new composition/performance style. I'm thinking it was Coltrane switching to soprano sax. But I could be wrong (and I'm feeling too lazy to google it and find out).
But I swear to "Bob" if I have to read one more ode to hand writing, to the glories of longhand and etc I may well hurl right onto the iceBook here. The text mentions the "surprising" number of authors who still write by hand for at least some of their process. And then goes on to list Norman Mailer, William Styron, Gore Vidal, and Joyce Carol Oates. Not exactly children of the information age there so the point is less surprising. Now tell me that Cory Doctorow writes his fiction longhand... that would surprise me. Technology changes and a writer should use whichever tools work best for them. Yes, you can possibly get results by switching tools. But you won't automatically get better results by using pen and paper, just because all your writing teachers used them back in the day. Pen and paper are not magic tools guaranteed to make your writing better. Feh! on that romantic twaddle
before computers came into my life, back in high school, i wrote a lot of poetry (which none of you will ever, EVER see) and i would write it longhand, but type it out on a typewriter, because i had this idea that typewritten words were more "objective" somehow.
i'm willing to accept that the instrument will affect the writing in some way (and with the way cory doctorow writes, maybe HE should try a different one), but i'm with you, writing by hand sucks.
Lynda Barry likes to write everything with a sumi-e brush because then she's obsessing about the shape of each letter and not worrying about whether what she's writing is good enough.
She also refuses to use e-mail or have a web site.