Thinking with pen and paper

I've noticed I write for longer and with greater focus when writing by hand on the reMarkable 2 tablet.

Writing in the reMarkable feels as analog as writing on paper does. I can convert my handwriting into digital text and email it to myself for editing and digital archiving right from the tablet.

I've also tried handwriting with ink in Moleskine notebooks and transcribing pages with the Google Translate API, which works surprisingly well.

I love the analog method. Yet I want to document my writing digitally for easy retrieval when editing and looking for content to publish.

What other methods are people using to digitize, transcribe, and archive "analog" handwriting?

Hi runjake, author here!

Not sure what you meant by the Twitter feed? Doing this since 2017 and it's still fun so far! Hope that helps :)

I've never made a serious attempt to add paper to my life, the only time I did was in the pre-smartphone era.

But I've definitely had no issue sticking with digital notes. I've changed apps but the process is basically the same. But I'm an outlier in tech, with an extreme high tolerance for complex black box systems, and most techies seem to feel uncomfortable without that 1 to 1 feel paper or DIY coded digital gives.

Paper lovers seem to stick with paper for decades, very consistently, they'll pick up a pen multiple times a day for years.

Some don't seem to have any specific process, they have many notebooks and things for different purposes, and they constantly try new things. I almost wonder if people who really value direct experience and experimentation are drawn to paper more than people who value predictability and control.

I see them make quick notes on napkins, make little areas full of random bits of important information, bullet journal in a nice moleskine, etc.

It's kind of amazing to watch, since some of these things could cause multi hour inconvenience if lost, and they don't mind not having sync. They must have a pretty good memory.

It seems like the real "process" and "tool" is a constant state of flow and change that they move with. Paper use looks to me like a totally different lifestyle and way of relating to the world, information, and your own mind, that probably has dozens of subtle effects.

Like, all my notes are in Obsidian, which makes it almost a second brain.

Paper notes are stored in specific places and you can only access them if you physically have them, which means the only always-accessible thing is still your own mind, and your notes are a bit more distant from yourself.

It’s a way artists hold a pencil; I don’t hold my stylus anything like that on a day-to-day basis. It’s a useful grip that I’d be constantly using if I was still working with a pencil, and more importantly, it’s a grip that forces you to learn how to draw from your shoulder, rather than resting the weight of the hand on the paper and pivoting from there. This changes everything about how you write and draw, once you get used to it.

And damn, that’s a heck of a video! It feels more to me like the pencil tip is left normal, with the line weight variance coming from very controlled variation of the pressure; you’ll notice that all the fat lines are coming when they’re pulling down. All the upstrokes are pale and thin, if they put the same pressure into those they’d probably be gouging holes in the paper. A .9mm mechanical pencil is surprisingly expressive compared to a .5 or thinner!

Edit: I just took a .7mm mechanical out and tried some similar writing; pressure can indeed do most of the line weight variety seen there.

> Using markers is smooth, a bit like writing with a pen on paper.

What I personally like least about whiteboards is that I cannot use the whiteboard markers sideways like a chalk, which is the best writing position to avoid contact with the board. When I write with a pen on paper, I can put my arm on the paper, but this is not advisable with a whiteboard. The pointed ends of the markers lead to a very uncomfortable position where the hand needs to be turned as far out as possible to bring the tip of the pen as perpenticular as possible onto the board. In this position it is quite difficult to achieve good quality handwriting. I myself know only one person whose whiteboard writing is genuinely visually appealing. However, I also agree with other commentators here: You need a good blackboard and good chalk to really have fun writing on it.