I also enjoy writing by hand, especially since I switched to a roller ball. It's a pretty good way to jot down thoughts as they pop up in the ole noggin. Of course, the arranging, rethinking and revising is much easier with a text editor.
I must mention this (
Bridgewater, you'll find this amusing):
In college in the early 1960s I used to write by using a roll of shelf paper hung on a bent-up coathanger hung from the wall over my typewriter (yes, a manual). I got annoyed by having to slam out a page, then rip out the sheet and install and align a new sheet of paper. So I devised this method, which worked out very well.
And I used to do my editing of the long scroll resulting from the force and fervor of my writing passion ("No, wait, this section should go here, not there.") by literally cutting out the section with scissors and "pasting" (actually, Scotch-taping) the section in where it belonged.
Literally "cutting" and "pasting." I found that editing worked better when I could see the whole piece at once, almost instantaneously by laying it out on the floor and reviewing it that way, on my hands and knees.
So one day I finished up a longish 15 page or so final paper, re-typed it on normal 8 1/2 X 11 Bond, and dropped it in the professor's inbox outside his office. A real "inbox," mind you. All nice and neat and proper.
A couple of days later we ran into each other and he wanted to know when I was going to submit it and I told him I had already, I had dropped it in his inbox. Well, this and that, apparently it got lost or stolen or something, and he asked if I had a draft of it to prove I'd done the work.
If he could see the draft, he'd give me an incomplete grade and an opportunity to re-type and re-submit it.
So the next day I showed up at his office and said, "You said you wanted to see the draft of that paper?"
"Yes, I've been waiting to see it."
So I grabbed the end of the scroll in my hand and swung it out so it rolled out across the floor of his office.
He was shocked and highly amused. "
That's the draft?" He laughed out loud. He glanced over it to verify that I'd actually done the work, and I re-rolled it up.
Happy ending. I got the opportunity to re-type and re-submit it, got my grade changed from incomplete to a B a week later, and he later said he always got chuckles from the rest of the faculty when he told the story.
All true, I swear to G-d. No screwing around.
Terry, 230RN
