Why I still write by hand

Dear Reader,

I still write the first drafts of every novel by hand.

There is something about the scratch of pen on paper that slows my mind just enough for the real words to arrive. The computer is too fast, too clean, too willing to delete.

On paper I am allowed to be messy. I can cross things out violently, draw arrows, write questions to myself in the margins. The page becomes a conversation rather than a performance.

I know this is inefficient. I don’t care.

There is a kind of thinking that only happens when the hand moves across the page — slower, more honest, more human.

I hope you have at least one thing in your life that you still do the old-fashioned way.

With quiet gratitude,

Claire