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3 Reasons To Draft Your Writing With Pen & Paper
Writing by hand helps you to express exactly what you want to express
I’m lucky to be blessed with terrible handwriting. Not so long ago I made a conscious effort to improve it by trying to slow down my hand and attempting to “pronounce” each letter more gracefully. It was the sort of handwriting I usually reserve for birthday cards and love notes.
It wasn’t long, however, before I started to slacken off again, returning to my barely-legible scribble that I alone can understand. If someone ever came across my notebooks by chance, they might think I write in some sort of secret code. It isn’t code, it’s just my chaotic handwriting.
There was another problem with my cleaned-up, pretend-nice handwriting too, which was that it wasn’t my own. I didn’t recognise the environment. And for me, that’s the great benefit of drafting work in a notebook using pen and paper. (Actually, I use pencil and paper, those refillable pencils with the retractable leads and a little eraser on the end.)
The benefit is that you develop of small universe of notes, arrows and punctuation marks that adds richness to your writing, and ultimately helps you to control your thought process as it comes alive in the written word.
