PoB - The Gift again, and writing longhand
Yesterday I addressed the importance of training with the Gift (the titular “path of blood”), today I’ll work on what scars exactly are and how they interact with training.
Yesterday I also finally finished typing all my Revision Phase 1 written notes in LSBXE and putting together the masterplan for Revision Phase 2, which highlights the main problem areas in plot, worldbuilding and characters I have to work upon. I might even post it later, of course as a cut, spoiler-free version as soon as I come back home.
For the record, I’ve started the rebuilding work before having the Phase 2 masterplan ready since I already knew from the first draft stage that I’d have to assess and rebuild the whole special physics area (i.e. the Gift, the world of crimson). Also, worldbuilding is one of the most relaxing and fun things about writing for me. Writing in itself is fun as well, of course, but the brain works pretty differently than in worldbuilding, and I wouldn’t describe it as relaxing.
Today I’ve found myself thinking about how much my way of working with writing has changed through the years, as my life itself changed.
When I was still in school, I had to share the computer with the rest of the family, so I wrote on the computer when I could, and when it was not available, usually after dinner which was the time I worked the most, I wrote longhand on notebooks and diaries. For instance I had a “paper” writing diary about Infinity and side projects, and I did all of my worldbuilding there.
When while at the uni I got a computer of my own, I still wrote longhand when I was out and with no access to a computer (i.e. in class or at the library) but I lost the whole longhand writing diary habit. I was kinda attached to it for some reason, though, so from time to time I tried to force myself to resume the diary thing - but it was, as I said, something forced, and didn’t work out.
When I started my PhD and went to live with DasteSO, it all changed even more. Being out for 10-11 hours a day and having house chores to take care of cut down my available writing time, so portability of my work became the keyword. I had access to a computer mostly always during the day, so I took my notes with me on a USB flash drive, and trained myself to write my first draft daily snippets during lunch break on the webmail as e-mails to myself, so as to discourage the habit of just rereading and toying with the novel instead of writing more. At home after dinner, in bed with my laptop on a lunchtray, I pasted my daily snippet in my book in LSBXE, did a bit of light editing to get back in the mood, and kept on writing. I mostly stopped writing longhand, if not on the rare occasions when I did not have access to a computer.
My actually taking written notes during Revision Phase 1 of PoB was more of an experiment than everything else. I actually like writing longhand, using pens, stickies and colours to get it all organized, and I missed that. I needed to print the first draft to look at it critically, but what I had to do at this stage was simply taking notes about what needed work, and I realize that taking notes on the computer while reading the printed version would pretty much have been the same (other than being more comfortable given that I mostly worked in bed). I couldn’t take the written draft around with me during the day, and I didn’t like bringing my notes in the office risking to lose them, or to get nosy stares of the “watcha doing” variety. Also, while working and taking notes I quickly found myself losing the big picture and often repeating the same issues.
Of course, for some things you *need* paper: I know I can only look at writing critically when it’s printed, and jotting down concepts on paper while clustering can work better for plotting. Also, when it’ll be time to actually edit the draft I know I’ll have to do it longhand on the printed copy or it wouldn’t work (I’ve learnt my lesson the hard way back then with Infinity). But I realize that the way my life is now, writing longhand has become the exception to the rule.
