“Barely. I’m spilling all over the pages, blood the color of graphite, gray soul spatters into the shape of letters.”
Is something I would not say. None of the writing process is so dramatic. It’s boring to observe: it’s all yawning and staring off into empty space in front of you. I get the need for people to be poetic, though.
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I used to have a large library of notebooks and legal pads filled with my scratchings. Then I got a computer and some floppies and transferred most of it over. My papers were so poorly organized that I kept going back to previous documents and adding stuff. But once it was all done, I had a huge paper bonfire. Two my published books began life on those papers.
What made you use paper? Was this the time when laptops/tablets weren’t a thing yet?
I use a notebook because I didn’t want to carry around a 2nd laptop, other than my work one. But as I did analog writing I find it to be therapeutic and distraction-free, which is good for doing a solid first draft.
I got back into writing in a notebook this year and have found it very meaningful … something magical about writing with a pen on paper.
Do you use an actual pen? I couldn’t do that–I change my mind too much, mid-sentence. Hah.
I use a pen – though, with regret, on those days when I commit the most heinous of spelling errors.
Instead of erasing, I sometimes just cross the mistake out. My son (now 8) yelled at me for doing that once.