That's Me. If I were Anne Hathaway playing Jane Austen, at least.
I never start a story on my laptop.
Seriously, never. It's so... bulky, electronic, and... dry.
I had begun watching 'Becoming Jane' today, and some of my favorite scenes have absolutely nothing to do with that Hot Dude from Limerick. It's when Jane is alone. For example:
-The opening scene of the film; it's early morning, and Jane is writing alone at a desk in a nightgown and shawl. It's so quiet; just the sound of a faucet dripping, snoozing piglets, her family sleeping. She plucks some notes out on the piano for inspiration, thinking. Then she finds the words, writes them down, reads over it, and in a little fit of accomplishment, plays a happy tune on the piano, waking the entire household (including the Pigs) and startling the maid.
-She just overheard Hot Dude from Limerick consider her work juvenile (after falling asleep during her open letter to her newly engaged sister), and runs upstairs to tear apart the pages she wrote. She then pulls out a trunk from under the bed, and opens it, reading over other pieces of her work-- it's filled with single pages of her writing, ink, quills, and all other literary paraphernalia. I love this one. It makes me think of my approach to writing, and the disorganization that comes with it.
To be completely honest, most of my writing is scattered about on sheets of paper of various sizes, shoved between notebooks and textbooks on my bookshelves and in drawers. Even the notebooks I have that are devoted to writing are paper-clipped and dog-eared like I just have no place to put my things.
But I love it. I love picking up an old journal and going through it for inspiration. I find stories I had completely forgotten about. It's like finding an old friend. And we become reacquainted, but with new knowledge and experiences to draw from, the friendship evolves into something else. Something better, perhaps? Or maybe something that would never come to fruition. And I enjoy seeing my handwriting on the pages. I change it, consciously, from time to time, just to play with lettering. And I love the way it feels between my fingers--the new paper, the old paper, the high quality versus low quality, the thin and thick, the recycled--the crinkling sound a melody in my ears as I leaf through my imagination.
Oh, and the look of the new sheet of paper. It is so intimidating, yet so inviting. I want whatever I write to be magnificent, but I want there to be imperfections as well. I'll doodle on it just to break it in.
I don't transfer stories to computer until I'm sure it is something I would like to seriously pursue, or eventually post online somewhere. Only then do I open my laptop. Even if I have more ideas for the story, I still begin on paper before transferring to a word document.
It's so difficult to think freely when you have a word processor correcting your misspellings and underlining your grammatical errors. The bright light is disturbing, I have to keep my hands on Home Row. My thoughts flow so well from my left hand to the pen to the paper, and the sound is much more soothing than the click-clacking of keys (which I enjoy as well, but only when blogging--which happens to be the only time I don't use paper).
Which brings me to pens. Oh... pens.
I'll save that for another post.
~Pusher. Of. Pens.~
P.S. I just started knitting! Check out my other blog for the amazing adventure... there's pics!
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