Monday, September 17, 2012

And Again

So, technically, y'all will be getting two posts on this date. Oh well. I stay up too late.

So far, I've faithfully taken some time every day, before I go to bed, to write a blog post and work on the book. It's honestly getting a little harder, but I like filling out the chart, and knowing I can each night is really cool.

I know, it's sad, isn't it?

Anyway, it's really getting good. Because I've exclusively been working in pen and paper, writing is fun again. I feel like there's no such thing as writer's block when I'm doing it the old-fashioned way. I don't sit and stare at a blinking cursor or scroll desperately to look for things or get distracted and start editing. I just write, and it feels good to be doing that again. It would probably be a whole lot quicker to only write on the computer, but that's not me.

When I'm working on the novel, I use a speckled composition notebook and a Pilot pen. I don't use anything else. I even replace the cartridges, because it is cheaper than buying new pens, and Walmart started carrying blue again. I think it's the little ritual there that feels so good, or maybe the way the ink flows so well and how the blue just jumps off the white page.

The first version of this book, for the first and second drafts, were completely handwritten in whatever ballpoint I could find, on stacks of paper stapled together. Literally. I kept the sheets in my pocketbook and I carried backups. I still have the paper, and I have no plans to get rid of them. Most of the book was written in my ninth grade World Geography class. When the second draft was finished, I typed it on my family's Gateway desktop.

Things have come a long way since then, but there's still nothing quite like putting pen to paper and just writing. Such a good feeling.

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