The Write Road: The Power of Writing by Hand

"You may not be able to read a doctor's handwriting and prescription, but you'll notice his bills are neatly typewritten." Earl Wilson, American journalist and author

Writing by hand seems archaic in today’s world. With all the technology available, why bother, right? And while the quote above mocks a doctor’s handwriting (a common theme down through the ages), a look at my own made me pause and think.

“Is mine any better?”

I tried … it wasn’t.

My handwriting sucked. But it didn’t always.

In fact, I have proof.

A few years ago, I got a small package from my mom. It was during the months before she passed away, while she was going through the stuff she and Dad had collected through the years.

A neatly handwritten note (Mom always wrote by hand and her script was impeccable) described the contents of the package.

“Steve,” it began. “I found this while going through some drawers the other day, and thought you might like it.”

Laying aside the note, I surveyed the contents of the package. It was an award I’d gotten during grade school, proclaiming my excellent (well, at least satisfactory) handwriting skills.

It hangs prominently in my office today. A reminder of what I once could do and what I can do again.

And of Mom, and her love for the handwritten word.

In today’s issue of The Write Road, I want to discuss the pros of handwriting with you. And at the end, please chime in with your comments! It’s an interesting topic with both critics and supporters of the practice. The specific topics we’ll cover are:

• Writing by Hand – Mental Benefits

• Writing by Hand – Creative Benefits

• Writing by Hand – In a Digital World

• Writing by Hand – Distraction Free Work

Ready to go? Get out your pencil and paper.

Let’s begin.

Writing by Hand – Mental Benefits

My next thought after observing my poor penmanship was…

“Who cares? Nobody scribes by hand anymore.”

But I started researching the topic and was amazed what I found. People still write by hand … and with good reason. Putting words to paper still has some intrinsic value on many levels.

According to the Oxford Learning website, writing by hand relieves stress. I have to agree on this one. After breaking a half-dozen pencil leads, I learned to slow down … and calm down … when writing by hand.

Writing by hand does have a calming effect. I’ve often come home after a stressful day and eased my tension by writing something, even if just a to-do list. That kind of segues into their other thought that writing improves mood and gives a sense of well-being.

Writing also enhances memory, according to many authorities. Putting pen to paper activates those areas of your brain that increase retention and comprehension.

How many times have you told some one to wait a minute while you wrote down what they told you?

And how many times did you actually have to refer back to it?

Writing by hand improves memory because it’s a more complex activity than typing. When typing, it’s one click for each letter or number. But scribing by hand is different.

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Comprehension and understanding also improve by writing things out by hand. Ask any competent teacher of the craft of copywriting, and they’ll tell you to write out sales letters created by the masters by hand.

Over and over and over again.

Typing them out doesn’t have the same effect. It’s like typing class. You set up your text to copy on a stand beside you, typed it out with out looking at your keyboard, and then looked to see how close you came.

Then … promptly forgot what you typed.

Writing by hand embeds the ideas in your convoluted gray matter … not just the what and how, but the why as well.

Handwriting requires more thought in the generation of words. Each stroke of each letter of each word must be carefully thought out, even planned. It activates neural pathways not stimulated by typing or texting.

There are studies that show writing by hand can slow down mental aging. In her Vanilla Papers article titled “16 Powerful Benefits of Writing by Hand,” author Dee writes:

Your brain, like any other body part, grows weaker when it’s not used fully. Writing regularly by hand keeps your mind sharp and lets you stay curious.

A study has shown that reading books, writing letters and keeping mentally active protects the brain in old age. When you’re mentally challenging yourself, you slow down cognitive decline, researchers say.

Some physicians recommend handwriting as a cognitive exercise for baby boomers who want to keep their minds sharp.

I’m getting old … I need to write more by hand. A lot more.

Boom … er!

Handwriting also lends itself to what I call the economy of words.

Typewritten text can often be verbose, rambling, pretentious; a veritable cacophonous cornucopia of unnecessary, redundant, overabundant verbiage that lends nothing to the meaning nor thought behind what is about to be expounded upon and related to the reader, thereby often causing confusion, dismay and a forlorn feeling of lostness, leading to the abandonment, if not outright rejection of the text as thusly presented.

Like that sentence.

Handwriting lets you write tight.

Like that sentence.

Sure, you can expound and expand on the ideas later in the finished prose.

But writing by hand, simply and succinctly, creates a solid foundation on which to build.

And that leads right into the next point about inspiration and creativity.

Writing by Hand – Creative Benefits

Inspiration strikes quickly, often without even a moment’s notice.

And usually at the most inopportune moment. Like in the middle of the night. Or on a crowded subway.

Or … in the shower.

Having paper and pencil at ready helps you capture ideas immediately.

Yes, even in the bathroom.

When I worked as an electrician, I used to think I thought linearly. You know … in a straight line, start to finish, no side trips.

When troubleshooting an electrical problem, it was basically cause and effect. You started at one end or the other of a circuit, and worked toward the other.

But now I know I think, uh, non-linearly … I can be all over the place.

Particularly when it comes to writing. And I’m pretty sure we’re all like that to one degree or another.

I’ve come to rely on my subconscious mind to complete my thoughts. I call him Ralph.

And Ralph works on all my stuff all the time … all at the same time. What I think is inspiration is really just Ralph telling me he figured something out and here it is. And then he goes back to work.

Case in point.

The other day I was sitting in the parking lot at JoAnn’s Fabrics, waiting on Mary to get some sewing supplies. Old Ralph popped up, said, “Grab your pencil … I’ve got something for you.” And then he was gone, off to work on something else.

Fortunately, I happened to have my writing instruments on me and jotted down Ralph’s idea before I forgot it. It was the ending to an article I’m writing … actually, one that I haven’t started writing yet.

He does that to me all the time. Sometimes it’s the end, other times it’s the beginning. And occasionally, Ralph will pop in somewhere in the middle of an article or idea.

And then he’s gone again, hammering away on something else, related or not.

Writing by hand lets me think spatially, not linearly. When writing copy for a sales letter or advertisement, we're taught to begin with the end in mind. That works for a lot of things, really.

If you were able to see my handwritten notes, you’d see arrows and crossed out words, and little pictograms of the ideas I’m trying to convey. I can’t do that easily on a Word doc on a computer screen. But I can on a tablet with a pen or pencil. Once I get everything down in writing, I then reassemble it in the write, I mean, right order in my document.

Handwriting sparks creativity … typing can burn it to the ground if you’re not careful.

Now I know what you must be thinking.

“Steve, with all the projects you have going at any one time, you must carry around a bunch of notebooks! How do you keep up with them all?”

Yep, that could get kind of crazy, right? And with Post-it notes, backs of envelopes, and other scraps of paper (Abe Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on a napkin on a train!), keeping track of everything must be a chore.

Not really. There is a way …

Writing by Hand – In the Digital Age

Surprisingly, there  are a lot of ways to hand-write notes and such on digital devices. If your phone, tablet, or computer comes with a stylus, you can likely find an app that allows you to write by hand.

And that’s a good thing, because those little graphical thingies they try to pass off as onscreen keyboards are a real pain int the butt to use, in my opinion.

Of course, you can always use voice-to-text apps. But even that falls short of real writing by hand.

Now there are few digital devices, developed fairly recently, designed specifically for handwriting text entry. I looked at a few, but settled quickly on one product specifically.

And it’s what I use for all my handwriting tasks.

My handwriting device of choice is the reMarkable 2. It’s a digital e-ink tablet and the technology is kind of cool. I don’t know if you remember the Etch A Sketch from way back in the dark ages, but it’s a little like that only electronic. Except you can shake it and not erase your work. And it has a digital stylus and eraser instead of dials. It includes 8 GB of memory and can sync to the cloud.

Come to think of it … it’s nothing like the Etch A Sketch.

Oh well.

Anyway, it’s a digital notebook that feels almost like you’re writing on real paper. And you can create an almost unlimited number of notebooks, and folders in which to keep them. There is a desktop app and  phone app that syncs with the device so you can view your files on them. It makes it easy to see your notes while you’re typing out the final product.

I call the reMarkable my hi-tech low-tech helper.

Writing by Hand – Distraction Free Work

But the biggest benefit of the reMarkable 2 to me is that it’s distraction-free, just like a real notebook. No reminders beeping at you. No internet browsing to distract you from writing.

It does have outbound email capabilities so you can send your work to a friend, coworker, or even your printer.

But inbound email isn’t possible … and that’s a good thing.

We get pulled away from our work enough with email on our phones and computers. That can be harmful to our writing and even our livelihood … especially if that livelihood is writing.

Multi-tasking is a myth. Really, it is. Your mind can’t be in two places at the same time.

With this device, I’m alone with my thoughts.

I can concentrate on what I’m writing to the fullest extent of the word.

And that’s a very good thing.

Steve M

P.S. My handwriting is improving … a little. ;>)