Thank goodness my writing process makes sense to me, at least.
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Luckily, F. Scott never said “there are no second drafts in American lives.”
He was wrong about that. Maybe if he hadn’t drank himself to death st 44, he would have realized it.
Yeah, it’s about as wrong as Tolstoy’s “All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” A great line doesn’t need to be true, clearly.
The lines you crossed out in the middle are really good!
I liked Buhrman’s Gatsby a lot, great cast, style really fit the story, Leo was terrific.
It’s just a draft! But thank you!!Ignore the writing itself! We were just talking about writing process and when I said I wrote in long hand, a huge silence fell over the group. People were like: “……. What?” I sent this to an editor I work with to prove it. His response: “That is fucking insane!!”
Working on something about Leo’s Gatsby. But won’t say anymore because it needs to be on the page first. But I agree with you Todd!
I had to laugh when I saw that page. Everything I write … recipes, lists, journaling, letters — look like that. It’s embarrassing. At least your final product is definitely worth reading.
hahaha Right? My journals look like this too!
I totally understand what’s happening on that page – but then when I step back from it and try to see it from outside eyes, it looks insane!
I was proud of myself when I was in college (50 years ago) that I could sit down an hour before I left for class and type a 6 page paper with only a typo or two. When computers came along I was delighted at how much easier they made things. But all along if I had something really complicated (I write leases), I have to edit it on paper.
John – Computers definitely make things faster. I’ve found that I think so fast and type so fast that sometimes it’s better to just slow everything down and write by hand – especially with longer pieces.
But I’m with you – if I have to edit something significant – I always print it out and mark it up by hand.
The whole “Track Changes” thing in Word – and other programs – is more efficient, I suppose – but my brain just doesn’t work that way.
My pages look just like that right down to the printing/cursive style! I write a chapter (they’re short, 500-1000 words, for children’s middle grade stories). Then the next day I type it from pages into computer, editing as I go. Then back to next chapter, and so on, every once in a while going back to the start and editing all the way through. Finished product of about 30,000 words already has 4 or 5 edits. Then it goes to the editor, and after a little back and forth, there it is.
Steve – how interesting! I find the “back and forth” approach very helpful – in terms of structuring the whole thing, as well as cutting out what might be overwritten.
Have you always used this process?
What about it works for you?
Yes, I’ve done this ever since computers. I forgot one step. Every chapter entered in the computer I print out. Next day I start with a reread and edit of previous day’s printout before proceeding with next handwritten chapter. Keeps me in the flow of the story. On a side note, have you seen Sam Clemens’ marked up Huckleberry Finn pages where he replaces his first thought with a timeless live forever phrase?
Steve –
I like the process of print/re-read/edit as you go!
I definitely print out what I’m doing and mark up the pages. I’m still a hard-copy kind of girl.
I did my entire script that way. Somehow, that process helps clear my brain … it doesn’t look so much like a wall of text – I can SEE the page, and SEEING the page helps me figure stuff out somehow.
and no: I have not seen the marked-up copy of Huck Finn – is it in a link anywhere? (I LOVE to see edited copies of famous works. There is an entire book about Plath’s various edits of her ‘Ariel’ poems and it’s fascinating.)
Sheila, here’s a relevant New York Times piece from 1991:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/14/books/first-half-of-huck-finn-in-twain-s-hand-is-found.html
Oh, Steve – that’s so amazing – I don’t know how I missed that story!
// The manuscript shows that Twain changed the opening lines of “Huckleberry Finn” three times. Twain first wrote, “You will not know about me,” which he then changed to, “You do not know about me,” before arriving at the final version: “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’; but that ain’t no matter.” //
Goosebumps!!
I love everything about this. I also like taking and making notes by hand, whether I’m listening to someone speak or doing any writing. I have bad anxiety about writing, but I find that when I allow myself to just freely write – whether in point form, sentences, paragraphs, whatever – with a pen on paper, it not only gets out the best ideas in the best forms, but it then helps me to transfer it onto a computer. And I also prefer to print out work and correct it by hand than do it on a computer.
This is like a dying art form, and I am not surprised that this is your method after reading your blog for so many years. Thanks for posting!
Brooke –
// it not only gets out the best ideas in the best forms, but it then helps me to transfer it onto a computer. //
I totally relate to this! And Steve and I were just discussion (above) how printing stuff out, marking up by hand, and then transferring into the computer is how we prefer to do it too. There’s nothing like a hard copy to help clear the cobwebs – and get out of your own way.
It puts me in “editing” mode, very different from “writing” mode. And with longer works – I keep all drafts, including the hand-written ones – because sometimes I’ve cut something out that I may want to put back in later.
It really is a dying art-form!
I work with Track Changes – especially in freelance stuff – because that’s usually how the editors communicate what they want changed or developed – but I usually just print THAT out, and get to work by hand.
Laborious, I suppose – but it’s really helpful.
This looks perfectly fine to me. At first, I didn’t understand the post, wondering what is supposed to be unusual about your writing process. But then, I read the comments and realised that it is a long-hand vs. typing directly on a computer thing. This then called to mind all the writing I used to do.
When I was in the university, back in the 90s, there was only one psych class that I took, where someone brought a laptop to class to take notes with. It was definitely an anomaly, where now, I believe that taking notes on some sort of device in class is de rigueur. However, at the time, I do think that it was common for many students to write their essays directly on their computers, and when I mentioned to some of my friends that I write out all my essays by hand, before typing them out in polished form on the computer, the response was usually somewhere along the lines of how labourious and time-consuming that must be.
Writing in long-hand, for me, seems to be how I can produce my best ideas, and where the real work is to be found. I always kept all my notes and rough drafts of my papers, and they seemed to hold the soul of the work, and were much more important to me than the final, printed, submitted paper. First of all they are more aesthetically interesting (different types of paper, different colour ink, pencil, the pleasure of seeing actual handwriting), but also they contain so much more than the final edited words. For example, one thing that I find that is especially lost when writing directly on the computer, is the marginalia, or the words/sentences/ideas that are crossed out in the body of your writing, but are still readable. One of your readers commented on how he liked some of the lines that you had crossed out in the above example, and on a computer, those lines would have been simply deleted, never to be seen by anyone ever again. I think that is a significant loss.
In university I completed a degree in creative writing, with a focus on poetry, and I would never have even contemplated the idea of writing a poem on a computer. I’m sure that there are many who do, but I just can’t fathom it. For me, a poem demands to be written out in long-hand, the flow of writing words out by hand just seems to connect so well with the percolation of words and ideas. And being able to toy with the placement of words, without backspacing any of them, is for me, so much more conducive to bolstering the creative process. Similar to your process, I believe, I would write the poems by hand, crossing out here and there, adding words, making changes in the margins, and when I was reasonably satisfied with it, I would type if out, and then mark that draft up all over again (seeing it typewritten also is helpful for the creative process, because then you see it with fresh eyes, as other readers will see it) and so on and so forth, until I would be reasonably ready to present that poem to be workshopped in class.
Lastly, I remember a poetry professor who had us start each and every class with what he called “raw writing”. For about 5 – 10 mins at the beginning of each class, we were asked to take out paper and pen and write freely, whatever came to mind, editing none of it. Then when the time was up, we were to look at what we had written and circle one phrase, one sentence, one word, which could possibly contain the germ of an idea which could be used some day in a future poem. Now, although it could still be possible, how much more cumbersome would that sort of exercise be on a computer?
HelenaG – what an amazing and detailed comment – I love to hear about other people’s writing process. This is fabulous.
And you put into words exactly my feelings about writing long-hand as opposed to directly onto the computer – where you can delete what you don’t like in the moment – but who knows, you may want to come back to it … I’m sure people cut and paste stuff, and “save” stuff in other folders – but that feels cumbersome to me – I can look at my page, and I circle stuff in the margins – or pull it out – knowing it doesn’t work in the spot it is currently in – but knowing I want to “develop” it somewhere else.
The short film reviews I write I usually do directly on the computer (although sometimes I don’t) – because three paragraphs on Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 (for example) doesn’t need to be labored over. I want to bang that out as quickly as possible – because it’s a check coming to me – and the check will not be huge – and I want to get as much out of it as possible, in terms of time spent. A freelance writer must be a mercenary, too. :)
But longer pieces – or pieces where I am really trying to develop ideas – weave in quotes – parse out what exactly it is I am trying to say (my Elvis posts were mostly written in notebooks – I have about 10 of them all stacked up – I refer to them all the time – with notes to myself, or ideas to develop later. My favorite note is “Elvis as Big Bang Theory.” I haven’t written that one yet, but I will and it will definitely be long-hand.)
I think one of the key words in your comment for me is “percolation.” For me, that’s the process of writing – and stuff is always percolating – but percolating ideas need TIME to come out – and writing long-hand gives me that time.
When I’ve taken classes too, I always take notes by hand. Somehow, I remember things better that way – and I’m not sure how that works!! Something about the tactile nature of the act – pen to paper – it puts the information I will need for a mid-term or whatever – into a groove in my mind.
//I haven’t written that one yet, but I will and it will definitely be long-hand.//
I had never thought of this before, but of course it makes sense that you would write these pieces out by hand. You can tell how much thought and love go into your pieces, but I always imagined you writing these on the computer, surrounded by piles of books and notes. It’s nice to know now that the original version is available in your own handwriting, complete with extraneous notes.
//…I want to bang these out as quickly as possible — a freelance writer must be mercenary too…//
I totally get this. The only writing I do these days is for work — I’m a social worker at a hospital, and although I take some notes by hand while I’m interviewing patients, I definitely type all my reports directly into the computer medical chart, in the interest of time and efficiency. Besides, we are not allowed to keep any handwritten notes anyway. Funnily, if I make a typo or something on a report, I can never correct it, because a patient’s chart can never be edited, for obvious reasons, but it bugs me when I see mistakes in my writing on a patient’s chart, which I didn’t see on first glance.
//When I’ve taken classes too, I always take notes by hand…it puts the information I need…into a groove in my mind.//
You just made me realise something! The action of writing out by hand must be directly related to a more specific pathway in one’s brain as opposed to typing. No one writes exactly the way you do. Your handwriting is unique and instantly recognisable to people who know you well. I think that could mean that writing things out develops a more direct connection with memory and creativity. Anyone can type in Times New Roman, but no one can write by hand like Sheila O’Malley (forgeries notwithstanding).
// I think that could mean that writing things out develops a more direct connection with memory and creativity. //
Hmm, that’s interesting – I wonder if there have been studies done.
I think, too, that now – since writing long-hand is a novelty – the sheer novelty of it helps me remember stuff better – whereas I spend all day every day on my computer – I mean, not really, but you know – at work and on my phone – and so I don’t associate the computer at all with creativity.
But when I write in long-hand, that’s all I’m doing now. Creating.
So it’s kind of a nice separation out of “spaces” … I don’t know. Kind of like how if you have insomnia or trouble sleeping you’re supposed to create your bedroom as a Shrine to Sleep and not do anything else in there – take the TV out of the room, don’t read in bed – keep that room for one function only – and then your body somehow kicks in, knowing “Oh. Okay. When I am in this room, it’s time for bed.”
I don’t have insomnia but I did have to “up” my “sleep intake” radically a couple of years ago – and that’s the suggestion my doctor gave me. Or at least one of them.
and it works!
Somehow the same thing is true for writing. I mean, if necessary, I can write a review crouched in a hallway on my laptop, because I have a deadline. No biggie. And sometimes I’m fine writing in my apartment – but it really helps to write “off site.” I do a lot of work outside, park benches, the beach, whatever. Notebook, etc.
Funny how everyone has different ways, different things that feel right.