Writing Implements
So I was driving along this afternoon, in one of those moments of reflective quiet (or as reflective and quiet as one can be when listening to the new Alicia Keys album at top volume) that are the writer's best friend, and I got to thinking about how I write. Not why, or when, or what, but how. I imagine that everyone has their little quirks and needs for when they write. For me, it pretty much always involves music (hence the ear-splitting Alicia Keys), but more importantly, it involves particular implements.
I'm a computer writer. In a pinch, I can write decently using lined notebook paper (college ruled, hole-punched, neat edges) that goes in my writing binder once I'm done with it. With a mechanical pencil - regular pencil if I'm desperate. Pens are yucky and not erasable. I have a lot of unfinished journals and notebooks in my life. People give me beautiful ones, but I just can't find the same kind of clarity in a notebook like that. It feels too cramped and constricting.
I love being able to see what I've just written and the space that comes next. So a word document, zoomed out enough to see most, if not all, of the page works for me. Much of the time, I format the page so it looks like a book would. That way I can eyeball it and figure out how much I have and where I am. Four pages is roughly 1,000 words, and getting through at least that much in a single sitting feels good.
I haven't done that kind of formatting with my M&S stuff (all 47,000+ words of it, not including The Journey!). Instead, it's in a more 'normal' setup, but written in Garamond, my font of choice. I love Garamond. No idea why. I just do. I write poetry in Garamond as well, perhaps because it's pretty. As HB can tell you, I like pretty.
I had a time picking out the fonts for The Journey, incidentally. I knew I wanted cursive for Sabrina, but it took me a while to settle on that particular one. And then I wanted one a little artsy/funky for Mark, with enough differences from Sabrina's font to make it easy (enough) to read. I like what I came up with pretty well. It's interesting. And so much better than my actual handwriting would have been, which was something I considered briefly. (I realized that his actual handwriting - which I saw on someone's picture of something he signed - is disconcertingly like mine. Which is to say kind of small and rounded and messy and not at all what one might anticipate - for either of us. My mother, who has handwriting not unlike fictional Sabrina's, has always found my handwriting appalling. I developed a complex about it at an early age. But now I like it. So there.)
Well, now that I've wandered completely away from my original topic, I think I'll stop here. So I can get back to my happy little word documents, all lined up in a row at the bottom of my screen. Computers are great, don't you think? ;-)