Print versus Pen

I've always been as fascinated by the process of writing as I am by the end product. The "how", "when", "where" and "why" of it is as important and interesting to me as the "what". So recently I got to thinking about typing versus writing in longhand.

It's pretty much a given that if you're serious about getting your writing published (versus scribbling for your own pleasure), you'll need a digital version of your document saved somewhere so that you can make multiple copies, print them off, edit them painlessly and send them to agents and publishers. But there's something so very viscerally satisfying about a crisp, blank notebook and just the perfect pen.

The stationery nerd in me has amassed an embarrassing collection of blank and partly-used notebooks in all shapes and sizes, and my desk drawer is filled with enough pens to build a replica of the Eiffel Tower. From simple, spiral-bound jotters to elegant, leather-bound works of handcrafted biblio-loveliness, fountain pens to fibre-tips, and humble roller-balls - in their own way they're all inexpressibly and rather worryingly beautiful.

But writing longhand seems inefficient to me - it's harder to organise and edit my work, and I know that I'll inevitably have to transcribe everything into a digital document at some point anyway, so I'm just doubling the amount of work I need to do. And yet the thought of finally filling an entire notebook with page after painstakingly handwritten page of lovingly crafted story makes me smile in a way that a printed manuscript in 12-point Courier just can't.

I'm sure I can't be the only one.