Handwriting – only for Luddites, or almost cool?

For a guy who publishes a weekly blog post, I'm a bit of a dinosaur. I can't type properly any more. In another life, another time, I was the first lawyer in the office to type their own syndicated multi-option finance facility documents ("SMOFFs" of course). I drafted the complex bespoke clauses straight onto the screen.

The typing pool, if you can remember when there was such a thing, looked on me as some kind of scab labour. Probably rightly, looking at where things have got to.

Now, my bent arthritic fingers can't seem to find the rioght kleys wiothout hittring tqwo of them at once. The consequence is that I do all the first drafts of my blog articles, and of most other things I write, in handwriting, then do the editing on the screen after fluffing my way through the transcription and correcting the multiple typos.

Actually, I've come really to like doing first drafts by hand. I can let the writing flow much better than it would with my unavoidable typing stumbles. I can jot down multiple versions if I'm not sure about the right words, or just leave it to the editing phase. I can do it anywhere, any time; without, for instance, being hassled by airline hosties on ascent and descent when everyone else has to turn off their digital gear to meet some arcane safety requirement.

What I really need to admit, though, is that I am now a handwriting dilettante. I can remember, only 4 or 5 years ago, decrying some young bloke who noticed me writing and enquired whether I ever used a fountain pen. "Not even I am that pretentious," I said.

Well, now I am that pretentious. I really love the heft of a Waterman in my hand, and I affect using turquoise ink instead of boring blue. I consider it hip to use a Hemmingway-esque Moleskine book, the one with the dark brown covers and the creamy paper inside.

There's an element of redemption about the whole thing, too. When I was a youngster, I had really wanted to be dux in 6^th class, and in my memory of what happened (valid or not), I only came 4^th because of my mark in "writing" (yes, a real, examinable subject way back then), where I got 64/100 in the test of how well we could reproduce that awful and soulless style of writing called "modified cursive". Now I can write however I like.

Many of my friends who are still living the full time professional life are either terribly impressed with the versatility and it-factor of their iPads, or are lusting after one, trying to justify the expense. I covet that Lamy fountain pen which has no cap, but lets the whole nib retract into the body of the pen when you twist it. I'm just as busy trying to justify the expense.

Here's what some famous writers have said about handwriting:

"Writing by hand is like walking somewhere instead of whizzing there by car. We notice landmarks. We retain a sense of direction. Writing by hand will show us True North and the false switchbacks and directions that have occurred, the shortcuts that saved us nothing and took us nowhere." (Julia Cameron, The Vein of Gold)

"Your handwriting tells its own stories. Handwriting also makes your journal writing more personal. And there is a sensuality to the experience of your hand moving across a page in tune with your thoughts that itself can seem increasingly valuable." (Stephanie Dowrick, Creative Journal Writing)

I have found that when I am writing something emotional, I must write it the first time directly with hand on paper. Handwriting is more connected to the movement of the heart." (Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones)

Ultimately, I suppose, it doesn't matter whether you are a gadget geek or a retro pen poseur, as long as you write, if that's what you want to do.