Turning silence into words. Totally resonates with me. I've been trying to build more silence into my life. More solitude. It is something we have lost in our society–it's no wonder we find our writing to be lacking a certain quality. We can't take the time to slow down. I think we are seriously missing out by not building in time to slow down so we can rest, and think, and write - and for me to pray. Turning my silence into words to God. Giving my brain the space to mull the important things over so I can actually make those hard decisions. Great post man.
“But for sure, the voice cannot be heard while you are watching TikTok.” This is so true. So many times I want to write but end up watching Youtube videos for hours at a time.
Makes me think about your defense of longhand - pen on paper has much more of the stuff of solitude than hands on a keyboard or thumbs tapping away on a screen. Ha ha, having said that I do a lot of my writing using speech to text to save even more time than typing! :D
I've actually been doing everything longhand, then speech recognition, then editing it. Seems like it would be slower, but I think it's faster. Certainly the words are flowing with less effort. More fun = more productivity.
Oh that's a great technique! Clever. I used to record into my phone and then transcribe it and I would find myself improving the writing as I typed it out. Then I switched to speech to text when the tech caught up but I'm sure I'm missing something in my writing because of it.
I think you are right that when writing with a pen better stuff will come out. They say students listening to lectures would be better off taking notes longhand than with a laptop. Your brain is doing different stuff than when typing, like you mention in your post. I went back and reread your old post in defense of longhand - I really dig it. The first time I read your post I tried writing a novel longhand with a nice pen in a notebook, and I really enjoyed it but I felt like I couldn't keep up with the words coming out of the brain so I went back to the computer. I kind of grew up with a keyboard in front of me and have always found the process of typing magical so it's my preferred method but I am sure you are right that longhand produces better stuff. It's great that you've found a system that you enjoy and that is productive. I'm unendingly interested in analog and pens and stuff, but I do most of my pen and paper writing in my Bullet Journal to record tasks and make lists.
Turning silence into words. Totally resonates with me. I've been trying to build more silence into my life. More solitude. It is something we have lost in our society–it's no wonder we find our writing to be lacking a certain quality. We can't take the time to slow down. I think we are seriously missing out by not building in time to slow down so we can rest, and think, and write - and for me to pray. Turning my silence into words to God. Giving my brain the space to mull the important things over so I can actually make those hard decisions. Great post man.
“But for sure, the voice cannot be heard while you are watching TikTok.” This is so true. So many times I want to write but end up watching Youtube videos for hours at a time.
Makes me think about your defense of longhand - pen on paper has much more of the stuff of solitude than hands on a keyboard or thumbs tapping away on a screen. Ha ha, having said that I do a lot of my writing using speech to text to save even more time than typing! :D
I've actually been doing everything longhand, then speech recognition, then editing it. Seems like it would be slower, but I think it's faster. Certainly the words are flowing with less effort. More fun = more productivity.
Oh that's a great technique! Clever. I used to record into my phone and then transcribe it and I would find myself improving the writing as I typed it out. Then I switched to speech to text when the tech caught up but I'm sure I'm missing something in my writing because of it.
I think you are right that when writing with a pen better stuff will come out. They say students listening to lectures would be better off taking notes longhand than with a laptop. Your brain is doing different stuff than when typing, like you mention in your post. I went back and reread your old post in defense of longhand - I really dig it. The first time I read your post I tried writing a novel longhand with a nice pen in a notebook, and I really enjoyed it but I felt like I couldn't keep up with the words coming out of the brain so I went back to the computer. I kind of grew up with a keyboard in front of me and have always found the process of typing magical so it's my preferred method but I am sure you are right that longhand produces better stuff. It's great that you've found a system that you enjoy and that is productive. I'm unendingly interested in analog and pens and stuff, but I do most of my pen and paper writing in my Bullet Journal to record tasks and make lists.