Pen Licence

For the first time since high school I’ve tried to start regularly handwriting again. I like the way it feels more pure and direct, with no chance to backspace and rewrite. The action of handwriting is smoother and less mechanical than typing. I like the way that it’s an uninterrupted conduit between my head, my arm and the page: the act of writing becomes a real, physical thing. Feeding words into a computer can feel formless and inconsequential—a 2000 word document takes up virtually the same amount of space as a 200 word one—whereas the exercise book I’m writing in is slowly being filled by words, by ink. The words I handwrite have weight and texture; I can run my hand over the page and feel the indentations of the pen marks.

And the words are unmistakeably mine—my handwriting may be messy but generally it’s legible (at least to me). And the pen itself and the type of book aren’t important—there’s actually something kind of satisfying about using inexpensive implements to create something that has more worth (well, hopefully) than what was used to bring it into existence.

I presume that I type faster than I handwrite, but my thoughts don’t really lose pace with my hand as I thought they might when handwriting. Rather the words seem to be stored in my head and as I write they form on the page while my brain remains a couple of words in front. A bit like breathing, it becomes difficult if you over think this process; you sort of just have to let it happen. I learned yesterday that the eye actually skims ahead while reading, so that if the light was suddenly switched off the brain knows the next couple of words ahead of the one that it is ostensibly ‘focused’ on. I presume something similar occurs when writing.

The above is a pic of the first draft of this post as it appears in my exercise book. It’s kind of strange to stop and think about the huge difference between those words appearing on a page in a notebook, which is personal and private, and then seeing those words (or at least a version of those words) up on the most public and pervasive sphere in existence—not that the fact it appears now online necessarily means that it will be read by any greater number of people. But the fact I post this means I am accepting of the possibility that someone may read these words, whereas when I’m handwriting there is a fairly implicit knowledge that nobody will see it (when I was writing initially I didn’t have the idea to put the picture online, thus I was certain that the words on the page would remain private). In some ways it’s a shame that novels etc. are not presented as handwritten manuscripts, because while fonts can be wonderfully emotive they are a barrier between the writer and reader—an extra layer that must be navigated and interpreted.

This may be why I find it so intriguing to see an author’s handwritten notes on pages—it is as if I’ve been invited to a greater level of intimacy with that writer. Indeed, handwritten notes are intimate even if not from ‘famous’ people, e.g. birthday cards or postcards. Handwritten words approximate something much closer to ‘thought’ rather than writing: most people’s handwriting is scrawling and imperfect, arguably like the nature of thought itself. It retains an ‘immediate’ or ‘fresh’ quality, direct from the source. Furthermore, handwriting is always unique—typed letters rob individual writers and their thoughts of their personal nature. Is this loss of personality in handwriting something we don’t miss anymore simply because we’re so used to typed characters? Style and voice still count for a lot, of course—good writers have personality and presence even when working in Courier. But the barrier remains, and perhaps deprives us of a deeper, more biological (even biomechanical?) connection with the writer that only handwriting can provide.