Colophon

I am a slow writer, and it’s mainly from these obsessions with writing processes that I often get. For many years, I've started things in longhand and then typed them up either on the typewriter or the computer. I have many graph composition notebooks with notes and half-starts. I've also tried yellow legal pads and writing on letter- and legal-sized copy paper. I've even tried Nabokov’s method of using note cards. It’s evident then that I like writing longhand. It gives me pleasure to see my words form beneath my hand. While it’s certainly easier to write each sentence over and over again on the computer until I "get it right," I am fascinated by manuscripts because they seem more real than a computer page. I feel more authentic writing longhand. But this constant switching back and forth among methods gets me no where fast.

Currently, my writing process consists of scribbling ideas, sentences, and paragraphs in 5 x 5 ruled graph composition notebooks with a Pilot Precise V5 pen; typing either on my Royal FP or Olympia portable typewriter when I get the urge; and then crafting the final product, sentence by sentence, in the word processor of the moment.