The Pleasures of Writing in Longhand

In recent years I’ve discovered a new passion for handwriting stories. I enjoy the feel of shaping letters on the page, the way ideas and thoughts seem to flow.

I write in lined, spiral-bound notebooks and journals. I’m fussy about these, as I can lay them flat when writing, often in cafés. I write with my favourite propelling pencils. It’s pleasing how the soft, dark-grey lead skims along the lines, sometimes to put flesh on the bones of an idea I’ve been incubating; sometimes shaping into something entirely unplanned, which could become a short story, a feature, a poem, or a review of a particularly well-written book I’ve just finished.

I’ve tried writing with cheap biro-type pens, fine felt tips, even with a lovely fountain pen, but always go back to my favourite pencils: Paper Mate 1.3mm HB, triangular barrel, easy to hold — if you’re interested. I can’t tell you how many fellow writers I’ve given these to, once they’ve stopped smiling indulgently at my Luddite tendencies and tried writing with them.

I carry my writing tools in a pencil case, and enjoy the ritual of setting out notebooks and pencils. Journaling is the head-emptying, the purging of daily cares, worries and anxieties, in preparation for allowing the flow of creative ideas. Where they come from is a wonder and mystery. Quite often I’ll reread a passage at a later date and have no memory of having written it. I love that.

I find great pleasure in the bygone tools of writing. I have a small collection of vintage ink bottles, antique glass inkwells, stamps, and school dip pens with cheap wooden handles and beaked metal nibs — the ones guaranteed to make ink blots all over your work. A gorgeous little Smith & Corona typewriter, rumoured to have belonged to a journalist and used in the trenches of the First World War, has pride of place in my study.

I often type straight onto my desktop PC and edit my short stories and books in Word before printing them out. But I continue to be delighted and amazed by how productive I’m finding it to handwrite the framework of the dark gothic, fantastical, often feminist horror stories I’m amassing for a collection I plan to publish later.