Brain > Fingers

To take what is in my brain and send it down to my fingers seems to get harder the more I try. Why is that? So many things get in the way of just splurging those thoughts across the screen. Maybe that’s part of the problem? Writing on a screen is such a different process to doing so on paper.

Writing on my laptop involves transforming the coalescing thoughts into nerve impulses instructing my fingers to seek out and press keys to form the words. Whereas hand-writing is like drawing and involves moving my hand across the page to form the words in my crabbed and geeky handwriting. I have always thought there is less between me and the words. However, I am less sure of everything these days.

Philip Pullman I remember lost his lucky pen, he found it again in his jacket pocket. That is what he writes with, a Mont Blanc Ballpoint on paper. He is very specific. Then every chapter or two he ‘puts it on a computer for editing’ (his/radiotimes phrase, not sure why it tickles me). A thing he says, that I love, is that he only writes for versions of himself. I always imagine Mr Pullman writes from an oak panelled room (probably with high stained glass windows and a gargoyle) where he can keep all his manuscripts piled up around him like a wizard. Those piles of paper are problematic for me.

Bruce Chatwin of course famously wrote in those little moleskin notebooks. An analog for a technique used by a very different author, Cory Doctorow. Cory is also incidentally (like Bruce) a traveller and has replaced moleskins with infinitely portable electronic files. Cory is a dazzling technomage and produces reams of words everyday but, like the dear late Terry Pratchett (another of my small gods), he is consistent. He writes on his laptop and does so everywhere and in every situation. The main appeal to me is that those electronic files can be saved in such a way to be easily found again in a neat referenceable way.

I used to be so impressed by the technical tools Cory used when writing. I remember him using a form of git to pull in day to day informatics (his recent posts, news, weather etc) which would get referenced along with his day of writing. It appears that has since evolved into his memex method of writing. Whilst hugely impressive this method is specific to Cory and I am not up to the same task. Nonetheless I continue to prefer electronic files over bits of paper.

My fascination for all that cleverness does in the end, just distract me from writing. My little blog does not have Cory’s full-text search and tag-based retrieval tools and I cannot be stuffed to integrate them right now. This to me is the crux of why I am finding writing so hard. I am constantly tempted by tricks, tips and tools (just fuck off remarkable) which purport to make it easier. But it is not supposed to be easy, just ask poor Douglas “Lock-Me-In-A-Room-To-Write” Adams. When I was 12 I would just write a silly story and let my imagination do its own thing regardless. My limitation was that my hand would ache after a page or two. This was the first of the many excuses I would discover to limit myself. Perhaps this is why I enjoy telling stories verbally because I am too lazy to write.

A tip I have often heard is to always finish your writing in the middle of a thought or a sentance. That way you have threads to pick up when you restart. I think the problem with writing this blog is that I am writing a post which stands by itself. This leaves me no threads to pick up and follow. Writing longer form is a different beast.