Month: May 2024

It’s disastrous when your document is lost because it wasn’t saved. All that work, all that time flushed down the toilet because the “save as” command wasn’t clicked.

Even though I learned in school to always save your work every few minutes, there’s a part of me that wants to keep typing without having to pause and click “save as” when I start a document. It’s like pausing for even a second would be slamming down on the brakes, and to resume and pick up where I left off at would be almost impossible.

Being in the zone is where I want to be when I write. But when I am in the zone, I forget to save the work, and like all unfortunate events that can happen on the computer, something awful can happen out of nowhere: the computer freezes, the power can go out, or the program itself crashes. You’re left staring at a blank screen, realizing that all that hard work has been lost, like it had been written in the sand and the wind blew it away.

In my last post, I wrote about the differences between pencils and pens, but is it fair to say that they’ve been supplanted by the keyboard? Besides, a person can write (type, to be accurate) much faster on a keyboard than with a pen or pencil, and to draw on the computer has limitless possibilities–depending on the software and tools, of course.

For example, when writing with a pencil or pen, it takes time to write each letter and word, and editing can be laborious, tedious. But on a word processor, the words can zip by depending on how fast one types. Formatting and spellchecking take just a couple clicks on the mouse, and the same could be said of changing the font, text size, and spacing. Even words, names, and phrases can be replaced throughout the entire document without having to leaf through dozens of pages to find the exact words or phrases.

And when editing, comments and changes can be saved onto the document in real time and shared with other people through email or if they have access to the same document. In fact, digital writing, editing and graphic design has made all the laborious work of the past, which took hours and even days to finish, streamlined to the point where a few clicks can get the job done.

Despite all the advantages that computers and electronic devices have to offer, many people still return to doing work on paper with either a pencil or pen. Even though the final product can be done on the computer, there is something about the experience with writing/drawing on paper that is unique and personal, since it is direct and tactile.

It’s something that digital technology cannot replace, since it resonates with that part of our human experience where we need to be directly connected with the creative process, of fashioning and making things with our hands in the same way a sculptor or a painter directly applies paint to a canvas with a brush. It’s as if the pixels on a screen that represent our art or story is subpar compared to it being held in our hand on a canvas, or when it’s in a physical format, such as a hardcover or paperback book. In a way, it’s not enough for it to be 2D, but 3D.

To start a story, you simply have to write. Even though it sounds simple enough, one of the many things that can get in the way is overthinking it or over planning. With each day we push writing aside from our schedule, the idea starts to lose momentum. We can tell ourselves we’ll write when we feel ready to, or when we’re in the mood. But all that does is delay it from happening. If we do that for long enough, we’ll start to lose interest, and it will end up being a forgotten idea.

We can talk about starting from morning to evening, but until we start, it simply remain an idea, like a world of what ifs and what’s next and maybes that are waiting to see the light of day.

Most of the ideas I’ve had for the novels I’ve written started off as short stories, something I could type in a day or two. But for some ideas, they evolved and grew beyond the confines of a short story, branching out to layers of detail that require hours, weeks, and months of dedication to rummage through and explore.

It begins as a seed that soon grows into a tree that encompasses a universe of imaginative events, bringing forth twists and turns and character arcs and pivotal moments where more mysteries lie. It blooms into something we couldn’t have imagined unless we tended to it overtime with care and passion.

Although we can have dozens of ideas for stories, a small portion will catch our attention, won’t leave our thoughts until we tend them again and again, watering them with our time and research and labor until they stand tall in a field of finished works while others bask in its shadow.

When we write, our thoughts can get ahead of us like we’re trying to catch up with them in a relay race. They sprint ahead while we struggle to hand off the baton and keep up from behind. Sometimes our thoughts will leave us in the dust, speeding blindly forward as if the baton was in its hand when it’s actually empty.

When thoughts get so far ahead that we can’t catch up with them, we do our best to remember what our mind told us, typing from working memory rather than following it side-by-side, which is what we prefer. It’s like our hands, no matter how fast we type, can’t catch up with the voice inside our head that dictates to us at an unrelenting pace.

But instead of lamenting about it, this dilemma presents itself as an opportunity. Writing no longer is a sprint after our thoughts, but a chance to write in broad strokes. Instead of trying to create a masterpiece, it’s a chance to see what secrets the subconscious has to bare.

If we give it a chance, thoughts will begin to spring out in its raw and purest form, unfiltered and organic like a tree branch that extends and twists about openly in the air, unguided by some preconfigured pattern or design. It’s unique and personal without the impression that it’s been borrowed or copied from elsewhere.

It’s ours and of our own making–writing at is finest. So when thoughts start to leap ahead as we write, shrinking far away in the distance, we can at least be free to express the deepest layers of thought that have been dormant in the recesses of our mind.