Composing In My Head Instead Of In A Word Processing Program

[Paul-in-SF]

A brief post just to note that I had forgotten how much I can compose in my head while writing longer items by hand, rather than using a word processing program. In the latter case I am free to back up, erase, re-type, or just delete entire paragraphs, so I tend to type quickly, and then edit thoroughly. Most of the time when I am writing by hand, however, I am thinking through the entire sentence or more before or as I put the words down, because errors are messy and distasteful.

 

Even when in school and writing papers on a typewriter (back in those days), I would compose in my head rather than on the page. Not that there weren't erasures or white-out applied occasionally, but they were because of typos rather than recomposition.

 

Having gleefully adopted word processing for so many years, I had forgotten entirely about those mental processes that hand writing of longer pieces brings out. It's like learning to ride a bicycle again -- the muscles might be a bit stiff, but the basic ability is still there. I have only recently realized what a pleasure that activity is, and how much I missed it.

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[inkstainedruth]

Interesting stuff, but not really apropos to the initial post, IMO. Which is an interesting topic in of itself.

I had a conversation a while back with someone I know, who said that her brain works in a way that is clearly different from mine. She can do really complex math calculations in her head; but does not comprehend my description of reading a book -- in which I can generally visualize the characters and setting, even to the point of sort of putting myself in the protagonist's place. I'm not that character, mind, but I'm experiencing the events as if they were happening to me. This freaked out my first grade teacher, in that I could envision the events of a book about a boy and his horse -- even though I wasn't a boy; this made absolutely no sense to me, even at the age of six -- to this day I remember more or less thinking "Well, from who else's point of view would it be? The HORSE'S? That's just dumb...." The only book I ever read where I COULDN'T do that was The Return of the Native, back in my AP English class in high school, and I've been a decided "not fan" of Thomas Hardy ever since....

It also reminds me of this silly thing I read on someone's office door at CMU years ago, when my husband still worked there. Had to do with some ancient Greek student having developed a hack for learning -- he had developed this thing called a "pencil" so he could write down what his tutor said instead of memorizing it by rote....

As for writing in my head, I do that all the time. Trouble is, that I can't get it down on paper the way I'm envisioning it. But writing on paper with a pen is certainly better for first drafts than composing on the computer. I can type posts (although I often have to proofread them -- either before or -- worse -- after posting ). But stuff like poetry and fiction? I do remember typing up poems in college for writing classes, but nowadays I have to do a first draft with pen and paper, often after working the idea through in my head first. And for fiction -- which I'm trying my hand at now? I can't make my brain work if I type/keyboard it in; but I can write several pages on unlined paper on a clipboard with a pen. There might be all sorts of margin notes with arrows where I've "forgotten" something. But I can get it down.

Even back in college, I remember writing a paper for a pyschology class as an all-nighter the night before it was due -- I had a huge stack of 3x5 cards with notes from various sources, but I ended up actually writing the paper at one fell swoop the night before (often having to retype some pages. Ended up getting to class 40 minutes late because I fell asleep before typing up the bibliography and end notes.... Ended up acing the class -- which of course set a VERY bad procrastination precedent for me not getting work done over the course of the semester and then doing it all at the end; I could get away with it with papers. For projects? Not so much (I was an art major).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Paul-in-SF]

Rats, now I'm curious what inappropriate thing was posted earlier in the thread.

 

I recognize this is not a very compelling topic and probably won't generate a lot of responses. I was in a sort of elegiac or contemplative mood and wanted to express it.

[I-am-not-really-here]

Rats, now I'm curious what inappropriate thing was posted earlier in the thread.

 

I recognize this is not a very compelling topic and probably won't generate a lot of responses. I was in a sort of elegiac or contemplative mood and wanted to express it.

 

You might find the original thread by using the Find My Content button on your Profile page.

 

As to the topic at hand, when writing papers in college some 30 years ago, I would jot down random paragraphs and quotes, maybe 3-4 pages worth. Then number them and figure out a coherent sequence. For me, it felt free to have no boundary on my initial thoughts.

[gpsgrandpa]

I may be mistaken but I think the original post was about something other than letters. That said, I have been hand writing letters for over a year now. For at least the last twenty five years nearly everything I wrote was on a computer. Some times I would jot down on paper a few notes that I wanted to write about then everything was done electronically. It seems like my brain works so much faster than I can type. I wasn’t actually composing the full sentence or thought before typing it. I also don’t touch type. When I’d look up surprise; misspelled words, extra words some times doubly typed or even a wayward train of thought.

When I began to hand write letters I initially did a pre-write on the computer, then put it on paper. Trying to copy from screen to paper brought it’s own problems because I was still composing and re-writing as I went. This was also causing delays in answering letters because the lack of spontaneity.

One day I decided to forgo prewriting the letter and that ended the idea of first writing a rough draft on the computer. If I have a long letter to answer I may still jot down some ideas as I read through it, then I just write. Without spell check I am using the dictionary more because spelling correctly has always been important. I also try to write a neat cursive to ensure the reader isn’t trying to guess what I wrote. For me a single A5 sheet can take fifteen minutes or more so a nice long letter, with breaks, will be many hours of enjoyment.

[inkstainedruth]

I may be mistaken but I think the original post was about something other than letters. That said, I have been hand writing letters for over a year now. For at least the last twenty five years nearly everything I wrote was on a computer. Some times I would jot down on paper a few notes that I wanted to write about then everything was done electronically. It seems like my brain works so much faster than I can type. I wasn’t actually composing the full sentence or thought before typing it. I also don’t touch type. When I’d look up surprise; misspelled words, extra words some times doubly typed or even a wayward train of thought.

I had sort of learned to touch-type (although I'm not great at it) at home in middle school, and then took a class the last semester I was in college). But I find I can NOT touch type on the computer. So when I'm doing research, and having to take copious notes, it's so much easier to do it with a pen on paper or on 3x5 cards. And when I'm trying to write, the first draft (at least) is always on paper. If I get into the flow, I can easily write several pages of fiction in a few hours -- on the laptop? Not so much. The same with poetry. Yesteday's NaPoWriMo prompt involved reading/listening to a very long prose poem (when I copied and pasted it into a file to print off, I had to change the font to something more compact, and drop the size to maybe 9 point in size -- and it was still 6 pages). After reading while listening to the audio of the poet reading it (which was over half an hour) I then was supposed to -- with the other strictures in front of me, such as keeping stuff in the present tense, using quotations, asking questions, being detailed about descriptions, etc. -- write more or less stream of consciousness in a time frame of at least 20 minutes. Sitting at a picnic table in a county park, with a fountain pen and a college-ruled composition book, I went through 4 pages in a little over that time. Is it actually a poem? Maybe not. But I had no problem getting stuff down on the page; and I can't do that typing/keyboarding -- my fingers just don't work quickly enough to catch up with my thoughts (it's taken probably 10 or 15 minutes just to type this paragraph, although part of that was because the TV was on, and because I had to look up the list of things to include just now; and I'm also paying a bit of attention to the time to start the next load of laundry.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: One of the other strictures for the "prompt" was to "Seek the 'unforced flow of words' " and with a pen and paper that is much easier to do.

Edited April 26, 2020 by inkstainedruth

[BaronWulfraed]

In one respect, the computer has ruined the world for accurate touch typists -- since corrections are so transparent compared to the paper damage done by white abrasive typing erasers, white out (both the "type over" stock and liquid paper), and the games done to half-space letters when squeezing an extra character into the space of a shorter word.

 

Don't know what my typing speed is these days. In high school I was up to around 30 words per minute (net after correction penalties) -- while my Gregg shorthand was a medium 100-110 words per minute (I'd have to dedicate a few weeks with my text books to regain any Gregg speed).

[XYZZY]

Thanks for posting this thread. This is one of those things where I knew all the pieces but never put them together in my head to form the thought/conclusion.

 

I have to wonder if this is related to better recall of words hand-written over words typed?

 

Fast forward to today... almost all of my writing that will be read by somebody else is done on a computer. What I write by hand is in a journal, or notes, and has an audience of one (or zero). What's written at computer requires a lot more revision, I think a lot of that is because of the OP's observation. Notes and journal entries aren't something that needs to be perceived by others so can get by with less, although when I re-read them they are definitely of better quality that what I write at the computer.

 

Part of me thinks that's a little bit sad, but those emotions are related to being at the forefront of change. If a future generation never picks up a pen then they wont miss it. No different than my grandfather thought it was sad that I didn't know how to castrate a pig...it's not a lost skill that I will ever mourn.

Edited April 28, 2020 by XYZZY

[inkstainedruth]

Part of me thinks that's a little bit sad, but those emotions are related to being at the forefront of change. If a future generation never picks up a pen then they wont miss it. No different than my grandfather thought it was sad that I didn't know how to castrate a pig...it's not a lost skill that I will ever mourn.

 

Reminds me of the time when I was little (I think I was five or six the last year we did the trip) and we'd go down for 2 weeks in the summer to visit my areat uncle and great aunts in WV. One year my great uncle tried to find someone who still kept cows so my brother and I could watch them being milked -- only nobody in the neighborhood raised cows any more.

Ironically, I now know several sets of people who keep "hobby farms" -- raising goats and chickens; and one couple also was trying to raise stuff like quail). And I used to know a woman who had a sheep; she wanted to get another one (sheep apparently *really* like to clump together in groups) -- but she told me that if she got a second one she couldn't really get away with saying they were "pets" -- and Youngstown, OH had ordinances against raising livestock inside the city limits....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Back on topic, so we don't get another round of some newbie super moderator making posts go away.... I have found that in doing this year's NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) prompts, a lot of the time I will spend the day just thinking about the prompt and how to handle it -- topic, style, etc. (sometimes to the point of staying up the night before till midnight to see what the new day's prompt will be) and then only put pen to paper in the evening after I've worked it around in my head for hours. As a result, I'm finding I'm happier with the results for the most part -- this is the third or fourth year I've done NaPoWriMo, but I think there are more good poems -- or at least more that have potential to be good poems; certainly there are more that have worked their way from a notebook into a version on my laptop), to the point where I'm actually considering setting up some sort of online version -- a blog or website, so I can link to the NaPoWriMo site next year; but I will still be doing first drafts by hand in a notebook -- currently a cheap composition book -- with whatever fountain pen(s) I'm using on any given day.

I'm actually ahead this year (even counting the day zero prompt) and with just today, tomorrow, and Thursday left I already have MORE than 30 poems since the end of March. One day, I wasn't happy with the results of the prompt, so I went back and wrote TWO more. So with three more days to get stuff down on paper, I will end up with at least 36 poems in 31 days (counting day Zero). I don't think I was this prolific even when I was in college taking writing classes.

Edited April 28, 2020 by inkstainedruth