The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard
The trick to honing your true voice as a writer
I have more to write about than I ever realized and I only noticed it once I picked my pen back up. I haven’t written by hand in so long and I don’t know why. Avoiding myself. Why?
Because confronting your flaws and actively working to change your reactions and thought patterns is uncomfortable and exhausting! Back to scrolling social media and binging true crime documentaries!
It’s like I have a victim mentality and am waiting to be saved. Hmmm. My therapist will appreciate that breakthrough.
Honestly, now that I have a boyfriend I don’t write as much. The bulk of my scribblings have always been my lamentations over men, boys, dating and assorted romantic anguish.
Happiness killed my production volume and my comedy. Rude.
Oh, but I have so much more to process than my love life! Like everything else in my life that is the root cause of the problems I’ve had in my love life.
Go figure.
I get sparks of ideas for pieces, as if this is what I should be doing with my life, but then don’t do anything about them. Like I’m waiting for someone else to hand me finished stories. (See: victim mentality/waiting to be saved)
But I also feel too anxious to actually write any of them. And you know what?
It’s the computer.
It feels like writing in front of an audience and I can’t do it. I want to cut out the middleman so I don’t have to type anything up, but I don’t write the same on my laptop as I do with a pen. I know this, yet I keep forcing myself to be paralyzed before the screen.
What the fuck kind of self torture am I into? I don’t feel nearly as satisfied after typing as I do writing by hand. Why don’t I want this to be easy and fun and successful and lucrative? I must still feel like I don’t deserve it.
Well fuck that noise.
I need to close the blinds on the window of people looking in. I need to turn off the audience I feel is watching and waiting. It’s immobilizing.
Typing is a short-circuited outlet, where the pen is an unfettered flow. Typing keeps my thoughts scattered with a strobe light flashing. Writing by hand thickens my thoughts and feelings into a solid braid that coils on the page.
If you’re feeling stuck try going full hipster and pick up a pen and paper. Really weird out the Mac Book slaves at the coffee shop. You may find a rhythm and style hidden in you, unearth a freshwater vent of inspiration.
Like tapping “end” isn’t the same as slamming down a telephone receiver, typing an annoyed tweet about coffee shop patrons isn’t as enjoyable as tearing out a sheet of paper, crumpling it up and throwing it at someone on speakerphone in public.
I may have rediscovered my voice that I cluttered up with fancy trappings meant to help. Back to the basics. Pen in hand.
