Thread: Typed vs. Handwritten

Do you type or hand write your work?

I type at 110wpm. That should answer your question.

I type...because I change things so often... if I hand write, I can't read it later it is such chicken scratch...

110wpm? Dang, I'm impressed, Sammy!

I can do a little over half that on a good day. Of course you have to understand that my brain is an older model and technical support is no longer provided.

The truth is that I've always impressed myself with being able to zoom along at 60 to 70, with occasional gusts of 80 wpm.

Oh, the question.

I type everything if I'm within reach of a keyboard. Otherwise my trusty pencil and pocket notebook are always with me. I don't leave home without them.

During the day I handwrite my work. Then I type it when I get home. In case I lose my hand written version.

I wrote the first 6 chapters of my first novel in pencil on successive yellow legal pads while traveling in a motorhome across the states on vacation with my family because I didn't have a laptop back then and couldn't wait till we got back to do my writing. It was painfully slow and full of skipped words and miss-spelled words because my hand couldn't keep up with my brain. As soon as I got back I typed it all into the computer and stuck with the computer from then on. For 90% of my work, I only use pen and paper when I can't get to a computer - any computer (I'll even borrow someone else's computer type it all into an email and send it to myself if I can.). But I do use p&p when I take notes on the go and sometimes when I'm doing a little descriptive writing exercise. (Like when I people watch at the mall and make up very short stories or vignettes based on people I see.) I just like the feel of it for some reason. But even that stuff gets typed up into a computer file if I want to keep it.

i type. 96 wpm. I'm no Sam, but i think it's pretty bad@ss

Looks like I need to learn touch typing. Mine's 64 wpm. . .

I keep a journal near my bed for those random musings that keep me from falling asleep, or really weird dreams. But I type up everything else. It hurts my hands to write too much.

I have hand-written probably hundreds of thousands of notebook-sized pages in my life to date, because when I started writing that's all there was if you wanted to be able to write where you were (which was, for me, on the bus, on the back porch, et cetera). I then had a series of typewriters, all purchased at thrift stores, and those were great. Then at some point in the 1990s I bought an electric typewriter that had memory. That was cool as hell. Then a few years after that I bought a PC.

I can hand-write stuff if I have to, but I can't think of any reason I would want to unless it was absolutely necessary. Even copying things into my personal hand-written journal that I've kept since I was a kid gets to be too much--and that's saying a lot, because I enjoy calligraphy.

i wrote by hand for a while, but then started typing on my parents pc, and have since purchased my own. (Still in debt) I like typing a lot more, but maybe that's just because my handwriting is awful.

I journal by hand. I also write the first drafts of essays and short stories by hand. I do a lot of planning by hand but with longer projects I will do all of the writing on the computer.

Like Sam, I type at about the speed of speech. I use a cordless keyboard and mouse, and (right now, in fact) sit in a great big flubsy recliner with my feeties up and the keyboard and my cat on my lap. Sometimes Fuzzy gives me a break, and I can relax a tad without having to reach all the way around her.

Besides the fact that I cannot write anywhere near the speed I can type, there is another clincher of a reason:

Edits.

Not just switching a word, but things like:

I am writing Chapter 21, and I realize that if I add a few paragraphs in Chapter 6, everything will come together far better. Try adding nine paragraphs to scribbled paper. EEEK. EEEK.

And if you are old and creaky (as is Himself), you will find that doing a Thomas Wolfe (he wrote standing up, using the top of his refrigerator) is simply out of court.

One mo' thang: After ten hours of writing, I just shut down my 'puter and crawl off to bed. The 'puter automagically backs up all I wrote on an external hard disk. NEVER lose, or drop a thousand UNnumbered scribbled pages.

The only thing I see writing having over typing is there are fewer distractions. The internet isn't at your fingertips. However, that can be avoided by shutting off your router, but I do love those online dictionaries, and I do use google docs which runs online, sOOoooooo. . . I have to rely on willpower. A most unreliable thing, I find.

I make lots of errors with both. I am constantly backspacing when I type. If it weren't for that I'd be a lot faster. In fact if I just went slower in general and made no mistakes, I'm sure I'd actually going faster. But it's an effort going slow.

My handwriting is worse. If I'm on a roll I operate under this stupid mentality that if I don't get the words down RIGHT THIS SECOND then they will disappear.
This is something else I've tried to correct.

I'm about to do NaNo, so maybe these corrections can be part of that process. I'm sure my constant backspace is going to start driving me insane.
Well, more insane.