My name’s John and I’m a writer.
Group: “Hi, John.”
I know I have not been a reliable Killzone blogger these past few weeks, and I apologize for that. Sometimes, life gets complicated, and, well, you know. Why complications seem to cluster on Tuesdays when I’m supposed to be writing my Killzone blog baffles me a little, but apparently not enough to make me change my dawdling ways.
Thank you to those who have reached out with concerns about my health. I assure you that I am fine, and that all the complications have been logistical, and not always negative. Two weeks ago, for example, I actually had a post written and ready to go, but, well, here’s what I wrote at the time:
As I write this, I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Denver to teach at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference. On Sunday, a car picked me up at the hotel at 5:40 a.m. to get me to the airport in time for an 8 a.m. flight that allowed me to get home by 4 p.m.
That gave me just enough time to grab a night’s sleep, dump the suitcase and refill it for a Monday departure to Paris, where I now sit in the kitchen of a quaint little apartment on Rue de Princesse. We’re here to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary in the company of our dear friends Reavis and Shana Wortham.
In a first-ever move, I decided to leave my computer at home for this trip, depending instead on my Samsung pad to do the work of the computer. With that decision comes the problem of not knowing how to sign into the WordPress account to post this blog. It’s now a little after 9 a.m. Paris time—3 a.m. Eastern time. If your’e reading this on October 2, you’ll know that I somehow solved the riddle. If not, well, I guess I’m kind of wasting my time.
Anyway, to the writerly point of this post. While at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference this weekend, after I taught my class on Friday, my reason for staying over for the rest of the weekend was to perform six “blue pencil” sessions with unpublished writers, which were essentially critiques of cold readings of up to five pages of their manuscripts. These are sessions for which the volunteers paid extra. Inexplicably, three of the six turned out to be no-shows, leaving me with a great deal of unassigned time.
I hadn’t brought my computer with me for those sessions, either. But I had brought old school pen and paper, and was shocked at the amount of work I was able to turn out on the opening pages of the new Jonathan Grave book that’s not due till April 15, 2025. I’m talking 30 pages. And in re-reading them, they’re pretty good.
I’ve long believed that writing by hand releases a different level of creativity than one gets by writing on the keyboard. And when you do it in a public place—like the bar of a hotel lobby—it can be quite the conversation starter.
Case in point: The night before I left for Denver to attend RMFW, I stayed at the Dulles Airport Marriott to catch the early flight out, and as is my wont while traveling alone, I ate dinner at the bar and amused myself by writing away on the Grave book with paper and pen. I get in a zone while writing, so I was a bit startled when a lady behind me said, “Fountain pen in a leather bound book. You must be a novelist.” Frankly, that’s a big logical leap, if you aske me, but perhaps she’d been reading the content. In any case, it turned out that this lady runs a writers conference, and discussion turned to my participation in a future event. Life is funny sometimes.
Takeaway lesson: Never let technology get in the way of creativity.
I prefer handwriting when I can–I tend to have less problems getting started for some reason when I’m handwriting vs. typing. Plus, as you alluded to in your post, it just isn’t always convenient/desirable to have a laptop with you.
If I had a pen or pencil with a copy/paste function, and if I could read my once-beautiful-now-illegible handwriting, I’d do more writing by hand. It’s mostly notes and scribbles now. I can’t write fast enough to keep up with my brain. I usually have my Surface when I travel, but it’s usually to make sure I keep my email inbox cleaned out. I don’t know how people can get anything done on a phone.
Glad you’re back, John. RMFW was a favorite of mine for years.
Writing by hand does seem to trigger a different creative part of the brain. Alas, like Terry, my handwriting has gotten awful to the point I can’t read it most of the time. If I tried to write a novel, it would be classified as speculative fiction cuz I would have to speculate what I’d written.
Great to hear from you, John!
I don’t do much hand-writing because of arthritis in my finger joints, which means sometimes I can’t read what I just wrote. But, having said that, sometimes I do it anyway just for the pure joy of it.
Hope you are having a great time in Paree, and congratulations on those 40 years. We’re coming up on 37 in January…seems like they just breezed by like a toboggan run.
And (cue fingers drumming), can’t wait to see what Scorpion and crew will get themselves into next.
🙂
I use a pen and notebook to brainstorm my future novels and it works to loosen those brain cells that get frozen when staring at the blank screen
When we’re on the road with our RV, I keep a spiral notebook and several pens handy. It seems that seeing new places and vehicles and license plates from all over and beautiful landscapes inspires all sorts of ideas I need to capture. I also always take my laptop and am seldom inspired to open it. Unfortunate, that. I admire your discipline.
Glad you’re back, John.
There’s been a good bit of research done on handwriting vs. typing. I wrote a post here on TKZ a couple of years ago about the subject. Several of us even experimented with writing by hand for a week or so and reported our results.
https://killzoneblog.com/2022/10/handwriting-versus-typing.html
I’m glad you reminded me. I’m going to grab my notebook and pen and start to work.
I’m glad you reminded me of the handwriting experiment. I started a story that was a new idea and wrote quite a bit during that week, but never got back to it. I should get that out and type it into the computer.
While I never had beautiful handwriting like Terri, I could at least read it. Not so anymore. I think through my fingers, evidently, because when I try to write any other way, nothing comes.
John, it’s always good to read your blog posts, and, hey, life happens. I’m glad you’ve been busy traveling and spending time with your wife and friends, as well as sharing your experience with others. Fodder for new books!
I do a lot of hand writing, especially when we’re on the road, but it’s mostly ideas. A snippet of conversation, description of a place, character names. I started out writing by hand because there weren’t computers then, or at least I didn’t have one. I did have a nice electric typewriter, but for some reason couldn’t get into writing a book on it. Interesting how different people’s minds and work processes develop. You never know what might happen or who you might meet as you move through life. The important thing is to keep moving forward.
Glad to see you back again, John. Life does indeed happen. I hope you, your wife and Reavis and his wife are having a fantastic time in France.
My own handwriting has become very rough, but it’s still worth switching gears at times and writing in longhand. It does feel like a different conduit to my creativity.
I wrote by hand today (fountain pen, blue ink, Clairefontaine notebook). I’ve been experimenting lately with different colored inks. Black is good for getting in the head of a male character. Red is great for action scenes. I’m thinking blue is good for creativity, but I’m not sure yet …