The task for this week was to handwrite something – a journal entry, a poem, a reflection, etc – and then to reflect on that process.

A picture of my writing is attached, but frankly, I hope you don’t look at it too closely. First, my writing is not all that neat; at times, it may cross into illegible. Second, it makes little sense. Although I handwrite quite a bit, what I realized from this exercise, is that it is always only for me. I have, throughout my life, journaled. I have several notebooks full of handwritten entries that were never to be seen by anyone else. As such, I wasn’t particularly concerned with things like grammar, sentence structure, flow of ideas, spelling and so on. What I found with this writing is that it is very difficult to get all those things correct on a first try.

A few times I made mistakes in spelling. My usual method is to simply write over the word, or if it is more significant, to cross out the error and then keeping on going. I employed the same strategy here. I made very few spelling or writing errors, however, I did find that I made several errors in my word choices. That is, I started a sentence but then wasn’t really sure how I was going to end it. Or I used the wrong words to set up the rest of the idea. Since I wasn’t about to dig around for liquid paper, or the 2019 version “dry line”, I just forced the sentence and finished it.  So mistakes were typically not corrected; they were just worked into the writing, which will contribute to the incoherence of it all.

The final significant observations I made is that when handwriting, I tend to cut my ideas short, or at least, I significantly edit down what I’m thinking to minimize the writing. Once again, that is an acceptable approach when nobody else has to read it and make sense of it.

I do handwrite a fair amount, probably more than my peers do on average. Admittedly, one of the reasons is that I am a bit of a fan of pens and stationary stores in general, so I appreciate an opportunity to play with my toys. However, what I see more clearly now is that I prefer handwriting for some things, but typing and digital print for others. I most often handwrite when I am planning something out – a lecture, a list, a schedule. I also prefer to handwrite when I want to sort out thoughts that are swirling in my mind. But for anything important or anything that will be read by anyone else, typing it is, to allow full edit abilities.

(final note – this write up is more words than what I wrote but it took me somewhere between 1/3 and ½ of the time it took me to handwrite my entry. Another significant advantage of the word processor!)