longhand genius

[intjonathan]

Computers kill written creativity. Writers know this innately though they rarely acknowledge it, as the flexibility offered by spell- and grammar-check combined with infinite revision power would seem to present a much bigger canvas. Final drafts are typed, creative work is scratched out in wrinkled paper and messy ink. I'm sure anyone reading this knows what I'm talking about, you've all written brilliant things that disappeared as soon as you opened Semagic. Laptops can help by offering a change of scenery, but there's still that damn keyboard, and every word you type looks just like everyone else's. You have to write in straight lines and carriage returns without margins or sketches. And somehow those white textboxes look infinitely more blank and imposing than 93in² of notebook paper.

I mention this, not to make a journal entry about journal entries, but because I just fell for the psiren song of the keyboard and lost some beautiful things by the time I got vim opened. Rats.

Comments

[ex-athelstan105.livejournal.com]

Or is this a post about short-term memory? It must take you a long time to launch vim. Perhaps if you were to use a man's editor, like emacs.
; ]

I either disagree with you, or misunderstand you. I am not sure which.

[niralisse.livejournal.com]

It's not so much memory as creativity. Sometimes I'll get an idea and it'll sound great in my fuzzy imagination, but I'm not used to writing fuzzy things in a computer, I'm used to programming. There's a disconnect.

And yeah, on the laptop I was using to make the entry, waiting for it to BOOT before launching vim is also a factor. :P

the disconnect

[ex-athelstan105.livejournal.com]

I wasn't serious about the memory thing. But your response is still interesting. The post makes more sense to me now.

[huggybee.livejournal.com]

"creative work is scratched out in wrinkled paper and messy ink"

Amen! :)

[trupoet.livejournal.com]

but vim is so beautiful in itself....all the colons and slashes mmmm lol

[niralisse.livejournal.com]

It may be beautiful but only in a mathematical sense.

[fieria.livejournal.com]

heh. This is why all of my "real" poetry is in a large notebook and has never been typed up.

that be true.

[justplainjen.livejournal.com]

I tend to only write my poetry on my screen. I guess because Im afraid that my older son will find something too personal and read it, now that hes at that 8 year old "Im curious about everything and I have a 7th grade reading level and wanna read anything I can" thing.

Most of my poems are too personal for ME to read after I write them. so I guess thats why for the most part I type them on my computer, upload them to about 3 different places online and then delete most of them, so that in case I die someday, my kids wont ever read some of the things I wrote, because they wont know they exist. (theres just some things you shouldnt know about your mother or your dad and how he treated your mother...ya know?)

anyway, I do agree though, that the wordpad pad is like this never ending white space that screams to me to be filled up and then I just end up typing trite crap to fill in the space because it never LOOKS long enough, and sometimes, the best poetry or story, is said in just a few words. sometimes you can say more in 5 lines than you can in 500.

I do like writing letters handwriten though. I think there are just some things you need to make more personal...for all the recipient knows, it could have been a template and I just signed my name ;)

oh and if you DO want pizza sometime, just lemme know :) we should all hang out sometime (ummmmmm we being? ummmmm a few people? haha) and I can bring some pizzaaaaaaaaa. Im pretty busy for the most part, but weekends are pretty good for me :D and Ivan is off work fridays and saturdays too :D

so um pizza and movies and good clean fun with friends and new people that might be friends ;) ? yes yes yes. :D

Re: that be true.

[niralisse.livejournal.com]

I was totally just giving you a hard time about the pizza thing, don't waste your worries on it.

no worries :)

[justplainjen.livejournal.com]

not worried about it, was just offering to feed you some grub and maybe actually do some sort of group activity, as I never seem to be kidless on tuesdays to hang out with the rest of you and watch movies and stuff :( and as much fun as it is to spend time with my fella these days, I do wish I could get into some more group situations where more fun can be had :)