Writing Exercises

[rowyn]

Krud was writing about a book he'd been reading that was supposed to promote creativity. One of the exercises in it was "Handwrite three pages first thing every morning that you won't show to anyone and don't even re-read yourself." I gather the idea is to write whatever you're thinking about at the moment, with no editing, organization, theme, whatever. It's supposed to "declutter" your mind.

Krud noted that this seemed an awfully time-consuming assignment, and 'why hand-written? It take me five times as long to handwrite something as to type it.'

I decided to give this exercise a try, out of curiosity. I did it yesterday by typing during breaks at work. (Yes, I was doing it wrong.) It took me 33 minutes to type a little over three pages, and about 1750 words. It was occassionally incoherent and very disorganized, more like a "how fast can you type?" execise than anything else. It is somewhat interesting to know that I could pound out six pages from my head in an hour, if I put my mind to it. It would be more interesting if they were six pages worth reading, but hey. Beats my usual writing average, which is more like 500 words per hour. But I'm badly unstructured when I write, easily distracted and likely to wander off to poke at something else instead of staying on track.

Anyway, I did the same exercise first thing this morning, by hand. It took around 35 minutes. Which sounds comparable, until you realize that handwriting takes up a lot more space than typed words, given a typical font size. Three of my handwritten pages would be around 750-800 words. I never realized before how much slower it is for me to handwrite something rather than type it. It gives me new appreciation for my desire to have a full-size keyboard on any portable writing device I might someday acquire.

The other funny thing is that my thoughts slow down to the pace of my writing. My hand-written exercise was no better composed or interesting than the typed one: just shorter. And my mind could not think more than a sentence ahead of whatever I was writing. My brain needed to be there to remind my hand what it was supposed to be writing; it couldn't skip ahead to the next thought. This is true to a degree whenever I write, but the trait is most obvious when I'm trying to write as quickly as possible. If I'm writing normally, I can pause to think ahead on what I'm going to do next, then resume typing whatever sentence I paused on.

Anyway, it just seems strange to me to have this arbitrary limit on how quickly I can think when I'm writing. My brain can process more thoughts if I write faster. I suspect I think faster when I'm not writing. On the other hand, my written thoughts are usually a bit more organized. But I wonder if I really could compose more quickly if only I typed faster than the 50-60 words a minute I currently manage.

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I think it's entirely possible that you could. I have a fairly strange job. I'm supposed to type what people are saying, but half the time I'm not supposed to just type what they are actually saying. I'm supposed to condense what they're saying, especially if they're rambling on. It's a peculiar thing, this "art" of being able to actually listen to what they're saying and to make edits, but at the same time being expected to keep up with the typing, because they WON'T pause for me. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I suspect my brain may have swapped around a few neural pathways to specialize in the demands for this job, since I started. ;)

I am wary of "creative exercises" and the like - and the "rules" that go with them. We use various creative exercises at work, but they're really just ice-breakers - and something to wake everyone up after they're getting groggy from a heavy lunch. Rarely does anything fruitful come out of the exercise itself - but it's mostly the jolt of, "Hey! WAKE UP! You're still with me, right?" to break them out of their routine. Really, they don't even have to "follow the rules" most of the time - as long as they're doing something and it's not the same thing.

The art of handwriting can come in handy here and there. (At work, the facilitators often draft me to do writing on large easel sheets in preparation - and in fact that's one of my tasks I expect I'll do today, once I get the final outline format - because I can write neatly when I'm so inclined.) But I really see that as only something to be used when you don't have something better lined up. So if you can type, then type, I say. =) There's plenty of merit in that, too.

And I really know what you mean about not being able to think far ahead. I can "think ahead" to a limited extent, but doing so is risky: too much of it, and whatever part of my brain that is responsible for doing the typing tends to make curious typographical errors.

(It seems that my "mental keyboard buffer" for typing is "sound"-based in a sense. When I'm distracted but still typing, I find that, in addition to the usual "fat-fingered" mis-keys and timing errors and transposing, the serious typos I make are homonyms of whatever I was supposed to be typing, even if spelled very differently. Not that I'm surprised: When I'm composing, I "hear" my own voice saying the words before I type them.)

It'd be nice if creative exercises such as the one recommended to you came with some sort of explanation as to the whys and wherefores for the exercise. Otherwise, it could very well just be "creativity voodoo". ;D (E.g., do as I say, go through this ritual and *PRESTO* - you shall increase your mental prowess in every conceivable but immeasurable way!)

[sandratayler.livejournal.com]

I think the slowing of my thoughts when I'm writing is precicely why writing is so useful to me. Otherwise my thoughts flit through so fast that I can't even see them before they are gone. At full speed all I can get is a feel for the flow of traffic. When I'm writing I can see individual thoughts and examine or redirect them.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Well, I handwrote this when I was doing my 24 hr comic.

It took about an hour. My handwriting is very small, and generally illegible. I really don't like writing at all. In fact, I recall getting cramps trying to do post-cards or letters when I was travelling. I prefer to type at all times.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Also, I found long ago that I can type faster than I can think. A couple months of data-entry work, where I had to transcribe what I was seeing on forms. I expect it was rather like Jordan's experience with transcribing what he was hearing. As I didn't have to think about what I was writing, it went much faster, I just copied what I saw.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

For a while when I could type 110+ WPM I frequently ran out of thoughts before my fingers could type them.

Nowadays I no longer know how fast I can type, because I type as fast as I can compose what I want to say in my head. Somedays that speed is pretty quick.

Somedays, I could hunt and peck them. :)

[rowyn]

Somedays, I could hunt and peck them. :)

I feel that way a lot when I'm trying to write something coherent. :)

[rowyn]

I'm pretty sure you type faster than me. :) I KNOW Jordan does. Jordan composes faster than I do, too. He's scary.

But I really can't type significantly faster by transcribing than I can by thinking. I've taken typing tests in the past, where I'm transcribing a block of text just above what I'm typing (pretty easy!) and my speed comes out at between 50-60 wpm, much the same speed as the writing exercise.

[rowyn]

My handwriting is more or less legible but it's ugly. I often wish I had pretty handwriting.

I don't really mind handwriting, though. I find it restful sometimes to write by hand rather than type. But I never realized that my handwriting was so much slower. Weird.

[rowyn]

Neat! I never would've thought of it that way, but I think that works for me, too. I have an easier time sorting ideas out if they're written down. If I have a bunch of choices to make it's easier to do it on paper (or the screen).

[rowyn]

It'd be nice if creative exercises such as the one recommended to you came with some sort of explanation as to the whys and wherefores for the exercise.

In fairness to the exercise, it may've come with a good explanation at the original source. I got it secondhand and haven't seen the sourcebook. :)

I think that "WAKE UP!" quality is pretty important. I actually have gotten some actual use out of writing exercises -- where I did an exercise and used some of the results in a later piece of fiction. But it's useful just to break out of the rut. Out of that "but thinking is HARD" routine.

[telnar.livejournal.com]

In that case, it's possible that your output speed is the limiting factor, in which case, it might be worth getting a portable tape recorder (and perhaps voice recognition software later to make the tapes useful without a secretary) to see if you can talk at a significantly higher speed than you can type witout reducing the content quality.

[rowyn]

No, my "speed of thought" is considerably faster than my "speed of useful thought". I can think faster than I type, provided thoughts such as "I like ice cream" count.

Anything coherent is slower.

The Reason

[krud42.livejournal.com]

The "reason", in a nutshell, was to declutter your mind of the sort of things that might otherwise interfere with your writing. The theory, as I "understand" it, is that when you get up in the morning, you aren't so much feeling creative as you are worrying about when the rent's due, or wondering what shows are coming on that night, or stewing about something your boss said to you the day before, etc., etc., and this exercise is supposed to get you to write out everything that your mind wants to talk about that isn't going to help you with your "real writing". I think.

I could be wrong, of course. (I haven't re-read the book since my initial read-through.) I'll let you know should I discover that I've merely been talking outta my butt this entire comment. ':P

(My biggest issue with the exercise is the notion you're supposed to do it every morning for several weeks. It's a very "trust me, it works" kinda book, which as you can imagine, sets off my Inner Cynic. I need to call the person who bought it for me, find out how they cleared that particular hurdle.)