Doesn't work for everyone. I have essential tremor and my handwriting is abysmal.
Writing by hand is good for your brain
301–310 of 708 posts
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#302I'm surprised he didn't mention editing. On a computer this is trivial; on paper you need an ink eradicator, correction tape, or correction fluid. And even those are only good for small corrections. If you want to insert a sentence or paragraph somewhere, that's not really possible with paper. Also, if you want your text to be published online or printed, it needs to be digitized somehow. Which is a good OCR tool for…
Agreed. As someone who frequently rearranges the structure and order of sentences as I go, I don't even know how to attempt writing by hand. It would be a complete mess. I expect that the common refrain would be wait until the second draft to make such rearrangements, but it's often the bones of the story I'm trying to set properly, and if the bones are broken, there's nothing for the meat to dangle upon. But maybe i…
I think writing by hand trains you to be more deliberate when writing. You can't easily go back and make changes, so you have to think ahead more before you write.
For paper it also helps even more than digitally to outline the logical structure of a text before you actually write down full sentences.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
it was funny seeing this right below the comment saying " I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest. ". different strokes. if you want to ensure you don't get sick from a line being crossed out, buy new.
I have a book (not authored by Edison) that Thomas Edison scribbled his comments in the margin and I was quite happy to read them! Changing my own nearly-religious belief to never write in a book,I found that it totally changed my experience with the book and the author. There are thousands of copies of any particular modern book and it's no longer my task to preserve that unique copy for after the apocalypse. I woul…
That's incredibly cool actually, what was the book? Could you share anything he wrote which you found especially interesting?
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#304> you’re going to get tired faster if your muscles have to exert more force I like to handwrite, but my right hand gets tired very fast, especially as I got older. I write almost a shorthand style, and it is hard to read, but I value speed of writing things down versus the neatness or readability afterward. The author recommends fountain pen or gel rollerball pen, which I have both tried. Does anyone have any other a…
Consider using "bubble mapping" and connecting words/thoughts, instead of writing linear text.
I write a daily journal - in this calm relaxed mode, I write linearly (on dotted paper).
When I'm in a business meeting, or taking notes where time is fleeting (a speech / seminar), I use bubble notes - which is effective for quickly getting the thoughts down, and connecting them.
Give it a try!
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#305I've done Julia Cameron's "morning pages" exercise off and on over the years, write three full pages of flow of consciousness by hand first thing in the morning, and it's shocking how good it is for unlocking ideas and working through problems when done consistently.
Totally agree.
To others: The book is called "The Artists Way", and is an excellent guide to become more creative and expressive.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#306Having tried gel rollerball and fountain pens, I always end up going back to clutch pencils with soft leads.
The author dismisses all pencils because he has to press down hard to use them, but I don't press down any more than I would with a fountain pen.
Being able to erase is also a bonus. Not to mention the ASMR sound!
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#307A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding. Don’t get caught up tr…
The way people take care of their property says a lot about them. Destroying and defacing one's own property is not someone I would trust. I'd prefer to work with people who treat their possessions with proper respect.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#308I have about 20 or 30 fountain pens. I do system architecture diagrams, with notes in the margin, using pen and ink. It does help me think. I actually find it relaxing and fun.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
iPad is terrible for hand-writing. It's (relatively) heavy, so you can't hold it and write on it. It's slippery, and the friction between the pen and stylus is bad. The pen itself also produces gigantic strokes.
The stroke size is highly customizable. What do you mean "the friction between the pen and stylus is bad"? As others have pointed out, you can get screen protectors and nibs for Apple pencils.
The problem is that the screen surface and the pen are fairly far apart, so the stroke appears "floating". This makes it harder to do fine drawing.
Try to "dot i-s" in a long word and see for yourself. It's just awkward. So people compensate by using thicker strokes that hide that "floating" effect.
I'm studying Chinese, and writing the characters is pretty much the only way to learn them. So far, the only device that semi-worked for me was a reMarkable 2 tablet. But its software is too shitty to be useful.
So I just switched to paper completely.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#310As a child I was diagnosed with a condition known as dysgraphia, which makes it difficult for me to make my hand write what my mind wants it to without straining myself. Typing doesn't seem to be as affected for me for some reason. Sometimes I'll skip whole letters in a word without thinking and need to go back fill it in. Sometimes my baselines will drift as I write a sentence despite the paper _being lined_. Cursiv…
Yep. Same here. But I don't do notebooks. Any gain I might get from the writing is outweighed by the huge discomfort that writing gives me. I'm well shot of it.