Handwriting

Meet the Writer Challenge: Do you like writing by hand?

I love writing by hand. Until recently, when I have begun to share my words more widely, writing by hand in a beautiful notebook was all I did. I always felt it was a rawer experience, and a beautiful one too- just me, the pen and the page. Taking time to choose a gorgeous notebook and using my favourite fountain pen felt ritualistic. Looking now at shelves full of my notebooks, I know I would never want to lose what I have written in between those pages. I love the realness of them, I can pick up and touch a book full of my own words. My mark has been left in these many notebooks.

Since I began my Creative Writing Masters last September, I also write a lot more on my laptop, and have come to realise that it is beautiful in its own way. When typing, I lose myself in what needs to come out onto the page, getting more down than by pen. Now, my writing ritual includes both handwriting and typing. I value each for what they bring out of the very depths of my soul. My handwriting style always looks neat from a distance but I know it can be hard to actually decipher. My letter ‘k’ often looks like an ‘l’ and an ‘e’ shoved together and I have to slow my style down when I know a child will be reading it. Considering I used to be a primary school teacher, this is probably quite unusual.

There will always be space in my daily writing for both handwriting and typing from now on. I have a journal for ideas, thoughts and poems, a tiny journal for a daily haiku poem I write after my long walks out in nature. I have a notebook for responses to a writing course I am completing, and various projects on the go, saved onto my laptop. All of it writing, all of it spilling out from somewhere inside of me, making its way to whoever needs to read it.

With love,

Fran Waddington