A few days ago I read a post about handwriting vs typing. I’ve often argued that handwriting is the best way to write. I agreed with most of what the post had to say. First, I’ll defend my position on handwriting and then I’ll tell you what short hand has to do with that.

Why hand write then type?

  1. Computers crash; hands don’t. Your work is always saved in a notebook. Your work can be translated to type later.
  2. You are more likely to edit while you type. This cramps the writer’s style. You may write something, delete something because you find it useless then later wish you hadn’t deleted it. You will never be able to remember what you typed and recreate it exactly. Also, editing can ruin your stream of thinking and cause you to lose your train of thought. Not to mention those red and green lines all over my work drive me crazy. I’m always tempted to make corrections as I go because I know how much work it is to fix later but I know from experience that the interruptions will disrupt my train of thought and my writing will suffer.
  3. Emails, social media and YouTube are all on your computer waiting to derail you. They aren’t in your note book.
  4. Okay, your phone and tablet are portable but have you ever tried to type anything lengthy on it? Not easy and very frustratingly slow. The notebook is faster.

Now the arguments against the note book.

My handwriting is messy and slow.

Short hand is your solution.

What’s that you say? It’s archaic and only for courtroom dramas. Well you’re wrong.

Short hand is easy to read. Your hand can fly across the page when you write. It was created to take notes as someone else was talking such as courtroom dialogues, and doctors and journalism.

Little do you know, journalists still use short hand, in part because recording devices make people nervous. Well the good ones do, at any rate.

Your hand won’t get as tired as your write so your penmanship won’t suffer as much as it did before. If your hand is getting tired and your hand writing is getting worse and worse as you write, that is because you aren’t using those muscles. When you type, you are using different muscles then when using a pencil or pen. The muscles will come back and so will your neat handwriting. Practice makes perfect, as some would say.

So learn short hand or create your own or make a combo of both and take advantage of handwriting your stories anywhere you are even line at Disneyland as my fellow blogger did. Write everywhere and take that pen and paper with you!

You can read the post that inspired this post at https://theyawriter.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/writing-by-hand-vs-typing/