Monday 29 August 2016

Longhand vs Shorthand

If the words are in front of me I can write shorthand for hours, all day in fact before I start editing and realising I've long-jumped over words I've skipped typing...Just me? Ok.

Writing in longhand helps me concentrate and what's in my head to write down just flows and when I write I can keep going for hours until those words run out. I'm then left being surprised by how much I've actually wrote, sometimes I couldn't tell you what I had wrote when I begun but the fact always is I wrote something and I wrote a lot.

I tried writing this on my phone but I got to 'if the words are in front of me' was typed out and I froze, my eyes were drawn to the time and the fact my two year old daughter had turned my phone on flight mode and the words are gone, the screen distracts me when written words already on the paper focuses me, my concentration is steel and can not be broken easily.


I've attempted and failed to sit facing a bright, very bright blank word document and tried to squeezed words out that are just not there. I've failed and even attempted again twice, three, four times even to see if it was just one of those days but no. I got up at my kitchen table with my pen and notepad and the words just reeled out of my pen, like I was the computer and the pen was my printer, printing my words through ink onto my notepad pages. It was so much easier.

75% of what I write may never get used at all but it was 75% more of what I wouldn't have written if I was staring in a blank box straining for words.

















Yes I get blisters  on my thumb from how I hold my pen and my neck aches from leaning the strange way I do and my coffee consumption caps out the daily recommendation but it get me writing the way I want to write.

For me longhand wins out over shorthand every single time. What do you prefer?

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