Takes me back
Dec. 13th, 2006 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It’s funny the things you remember that you hadn’t realised you’d forgotten in the first place... It’s the mental equivalent of finding a long-lost photo of yourself doing something absolutely stupid which you’d successfully managed to forget until the curse of photography brought it rushing right back to you.
But I believe I’ve already wandered off on a tangent, so I’ll just come right back here.
Lately, I’ve taken to writing down scenes and snippets of story in my little black notebook while at work. During my breaks, that is. It’s doing wonders for my handwriting - I can actually read it now! Even DAYS after I’ve written it. In the past, it seemed to have a sort of time-limit: if I didn’t transcribe my messy scrawl to the computer within a couple of days, I’d no longer be able to decipher it and it would be lost forever.
In many cases, that might have been a good thing, now that I think about it.
I just hope I don’t take it too far and get to a point where OTHER people can read my handwriting. That’s a fine balance I’ve been maintaining for years now and I'd hate to disturb it. For one thing, it would take away all the fun my parents receive from squinting at what I’ve written on their birthday cards and then deliberately mis-reading what’s there in an attempt to annoy me. Little do they know I make an extra effort to be illegible when I write those cards, just to give them this small joy.
BUT I do have a point and I’m sort of approaching it. I’m pretty sure it was something about remembering things long forgot. (Oh, the irony...) The tiny little things that won’t change your life but suddenly make you feel more... you, I suppose. And I’ve re-discovered one of those in my handwriting of stories. Just a little thing. It came back to me on Monday, when I finally had to accept that recess was over and it was time to go back to work. There I was, sitting at my work-bench, upper body sprawled across the surface as I directed my pen across the page in increasingly legible ciphers and rested the side of my head flat against the table as I did so.
Like I said, it’s a little thing but I’d completely forgotten I used to do that. I can hardly see what I’m writing and it probably looks like I’ve fallen asleep if you’re watching from a distance - but it’s so comfortable! Much more comfortable than slouching at a computer or waging a war against the useless weakling of a keyboard on my laptop. It suddenly brought back to me memories of sitting just like that in the classroom during lunch and recess at primary school, scribbling away at my silly stories in my even-worse handwriting.
It’s quirks such as these that are easily lost when you do most of your writing at a desk covered in a computer.
But I’d love to know if anyone else has a quirk like this. Am I the only one who watches their story take place from a sort-of sideways view? Are there weirder writing postures out there? What makes everyone else comfortable when they write?
But I believe I’ve already wandered off on a tangent, so I’ll just come right back here.
Lately, I’ve taken to writing down scenes and snippets of story in my little black notebook while at work. During my breaks, that is. It’s doing wonders for my handwriting - I can actually read it now! Even DAYS after I’ve written it. In the past, it seemed to have a sort of time-limit: if I didn’t transcribe my messy scrawl to the computer within a couple of days, I’d no longer be able to decipher it and it would be lost forever.
In many cases, that might have been a good thing, now that I think about it.
I just hope I don’t take it too far and get to a point where OTHER people can read my handwriting. That’s a fine balance I’ve been maintaining for years now and I'd hate to disturb it. For one thing, it would take away all the fun my parents receive from squinting at what I’ve written on their birthday cards and then deliberately mis-reading what’s there in an attempt to annoy me. Little do they know I make an extra effort to be illegible when I write those cards, just to give them this small joy.
BUT I do have a point and I’m sort of approaching it. I’m pretty sure it was something about remembering things long forgot. (Oh, the irony...) The tiny little things that won’t change your life but suddenly make you feel more... you, I suppose. And I’ve re-discovered one of those in my handwriting of stories. Just a little thing. It came back to me on Monday, when I finally had to accept that recess was over and it was time to go back to work. There I was, sitting at my work-bench, upper body sprawled across the surface as I directed my pen across the page in increasingly legible ciphers and rested the side of my head flat against the table as I did so.
Like I said, it’s a little thing but I’d completely forgotten I used to do that. I can hardly see what I’m writing and it probably looks like I’ve fallen asleep if you’re watching from a distance - but it’s so comfortable! Much more comfortable than slouching at a computer or waging a war against the useless weakling of a keyboard on my laptop. It suddenly brought back to me memories of sitting just like that in the classroom during lunch and recess at primary school, scribbling away at my silly stories in my even-worse handwriting.
It’s quirks such as these that are easily lost when you do most of your writing at a desk covered in a computer.
But I’d love to know if anyone else has a quirk like this. Am I the only one who watches their story take place from a sort-of sideways view? Are there weirder writing postures out there? What makes everyone else comfortable when they write?
no subject
on 2006-12-13 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 06:01 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 01:53 am (UTC)Mostly, though, I wrote in bed, so in lots of strange positions, including in the air while lying on my back. This is rather difficult and wreaks havoc on already mostly illegible handwriting. I spent so many hours in strange positions scribbling in cheap notebooks! And now when I try to write anywhere but on a computer or at a desk/table, it feels awkward and my hand won't quite work correctly. Perhaps it is part of getting old? Or perhaps I need more practice.
Awww, good memories! Thanks, Katie! And now you know you're not the only one. ^_^
no subject
on 2006-12-13 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 06:17 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 05:13 am (UTC)Also your handwriting isn't that illegible Katie :P
no subject
on 2006-12-13 06:16 am (UTC)I can't seem to write comfortably with my notebook on my knees. I think it's because of the angle on which I write - I need to be sort of twisted around to do it properly.
no subject
on 2006-12-13 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 08:29 am (UTC)But do you lay your head down on its side as you write? That's the crucial factor here. ;)
no subject
on 2006-12-13 09:06 am (UTC)And i would always write with the pad almost perfectly horizontal with a back slant rather than the forward.
I still can't get over the fact that i earned my pen license purely out of sympathy (i was being beaten by the kids a year below, curse those composite classes).
but yes, i like those memories of times and moments past. As long as they're good ones. Not a fan of the ones that make me wince...
no subject
on 2006-12-13 09:23 am (UTC)And yes, the non-wince-worthy memories are always somewhat better than the alternative.
no subject
on 2006-12-13 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-13 11:32 am (UTC)I write like a washing machine. - That's a splendid description! It pretty much describes the way I read in bed, too.
no subject
on 2006-12-14 02:43 am (UTC)I used to write longhand, before my parents gave me a laptop. One of the reasons that I never liked the computers in the university dorms was that they were only big enough for the computer and its printer (or a book or two once I started stashing the printer under the desk to use as a footrest). Before I started college I always found it sort of relaxing to sit down with my notebook at the end of a day at work to type and edit what I had written in my notebook.
I write very slowly by hand but type like a mad fiend, so once I got my lappie I pretty much did a complete turn around; I didn't used to be able to think at a computer, but now if I'm called to handwrite a piece of story, I get at best a page or two of strange, fragmental paragraphs before I get tired and end up writing something like [type lots of specifics about this, this, and this] in the middle of the scene.
Now I want to try that again, because it just sounds so cozy.
no subject
on 2006-12-14 06:18 am (UTC)I do similar things to you and break off on complete tangents as I go. Or edit a little. Or write some questions about whatever the character's doing at the time. It just makes the process feel even more organic.
I heartily recommend it!
no subject
on 2006-12-14 03:02 pm (UTC)One of the ladies in the Dayton NaNo group wrote her novel by hand. I don't think that I'm quite up to that, but this story that I'm just starting demands that I write at least my story notes by hand, so I think that I'm going to be picking this habit up again whether I want to or not.