Experiment: a secret project

Last Friday, I embarked upon an experiment. A writing experiment which I have been meaning to try for many years. It’s nothing flash or creative but the simple act of writing a book by hand. My usual style is typing straight into a word document which is the skeleton template which I have adopted over the years. But this new project isn’t commissioned for an editor or even known about by my agent; a secret project where I can indulge and take as long as I wish because there are no deadlines.

I grabbed a nice new notebook, a trusty fountain pen and proper ink, and away I went. The purpose is to see if hand writing has a different creative process for me in relation to drafting or editing on a laptop. I’ve been told over the years that I’ll have cleaner ‘draft one’ as the process of hand writing automatically includes a level of basic editing. Whereas my fast flowing typing fest via a screen is literally word after word flowing with as much urgency as my brain can muster. 

So far, in five days, I have found a different level of enjoyment. You forget how good it feels to have the paper glide beneath your writing hand. And, hand ache having held the pen for too long! The story is flowing nicely and I have been lost for periods of time without looking up – it reminds me of being a child when the teacher set a writing task.

I have no idea how many words I’ve written – which has taken away one of my daily measures, but am conscious of the page turning as I fill each one with scrawly writing. 

My intention is to hand write every day from now until the end of the year, including my NaNoWriMo challenge, and see how much I can complete. I have my usual main project on my laptop, but its been nice having an additional secret one too.