I spend more time typing than writing by hand, but I still often write by hand. I found this task relatively easy from a writing perspective; but a little challenging to capture the image the way I would like (me and my camera phone don’t always work well together).

Most of my schooling took place before the internet and personal computers were commonplace so writing by hand is second nature to me. When I think of ‘writing’ I think of writing by hand, not electronic typing! Most of the writing that I do for work, school and almost everything else these days is done on a computer, but I still like to write by hand. In meetings I sometimes scribble notes for myself by hand. Often when I am starting work on something creative or something that requires a lot of thought before embarking on the task I like to begin writing by hand; jotting down ideas, scratching out and rejecting bad ideas, drawing lines and making connections in a kind of mind mapping style.There is something about the messiness of working in the material world of paper and pen/pencil that sparks my thought processes. I am also usually happy to transition from writing by hand to typing on a screen once the initial wave of an idea has begun on paper. Putting it on the screen in an orderly and neat typeface feels like progress and helps drive the next phase of the work.

The text I have provided for this task is an example of one of my diary entries. I am an irregular personal diarist and have been intermittently for many years. All of my diary entries are written by hand. In part this is because when I started keeping a diary working digitally was not an option available to me, but it also has something to do with the personal nature of diary writing and the way in which writing by hand embodies (literally and figuratively) some of how I am feeling. My handwriting style has changed over the years. I am much messier these days. I would also bet that a keener eye than mine could tell something about the state of mind I am in when looking at the different pages of handwriting in my diary.

Most of what I write by hand is written for my eyes only. The exceptions are Cards (e.g., Birthday, Thanks, Condolences, etc.) and letters to my father (which are few and far between). I don’t worry much about mistakes when I am writing just for me. I will run a line through or scribble out mistakes and move on quickly. This has however made it a little harder for me to write Birthday Cards; the kind with long personal greetings that I try to do for my wife. I have to really focus on the hand writing and even then I’ll make mistakes and find myself looking for ‘white out’ or something else to cover over the mistake.

I think, like most people I know, I am very grateful for the editing power afforded to us by digital technologies. I am at best a functional typist, no more than 4 or 5 fingers are ever in use, but even with this limitation I feel that I can write reasonably quickly when typing. Knowing that I can edit easily is freeing and helps with my flow.

For a long time there was something more appealing to me about making a mark on paper writing by hand compared to typing words on a screen. I imagine many people feel similarly about making a mark digitally, especially when the mark is made online and shared with other people. For me too, the differences are blurring. I enjoy working on websites and with design tools like Canva and Adobe Spark. The options available through these tools to personalize text have changed how I feel about writing digitally and have made it more appealing to me. At this stage of my life I am happy to write both by hand and electronically and take pleasure in both.