Tracy ChevalierPeople always seem surprised that I write by hand. These days most write directly onto the computer. For something like this questionnaire that’s fine. But for me, there is something about the brain-hand connection that helps me formulate the words.
Typing words onto a screen also feels more like “work” — like filling out a form. Novels are not forms. Also, I type fast and write slowly; my writing hand seems to be more in sync with the time that a sentence forms in my mind.
I do use a computer, of course. At the end of the day I type in what I’ve written by hand. Editing is much easier on a computer. Having said that, once I’ve got a draft I print it out and edit it on paper. It’s probably no surprise that I also don’t read ebooks very often; I much prefer the tactile experience of a physical book.
I suspect the surprise would be how little I’m glued to my chair. The process is typically one of brief outbursts of writing in the course of long spells of reading, cooking, housecleaning, playing computer chess, watching Mets games, and so forth. Then again, sometimes time inverts like a sock, and I discover that it was light out and now it is dark, and seven innings of the Mets game have gone by without my registering what happened, because I was writing. Or there’s nothing to eat because I didn’t cook, or the laundry rotted in the washer for three days. I don’t call this multi-tasking, by the way. I don’t believe multi-tasking exists. I’m just dodgy and unsystematic, and I’ve stopped worrying about how this would appear to others, or to myself.
As Anna Quindlen pointed out recently in her book Write For Your Life, the only part of a writing routine that matters is the part where the words get onto the page. I concur. I have written under the covers, in coffee shops, on trains, in front of the TV (which was on)… pretty much everywhere and anywhere. It’s nice to have a favorite candle or a playlist… I suppose… but so long as the words get onto the page, that’s just window-dressing.
