Week 2 of Catriona's new 2008 study regime, which means two half day slots a week, and it is already proving tricky, but doing better than I feared it might.

I have just spent four hours with real paper and a real pencil doing real writing.  Beginning to form some ideas for an article I have to write.  It is not a quick process, but I wrote about 2500 words and most of them make sense.  Not all will make it into the typed article but they have helped my thinking process along, not least because I wasn't constantly interrupted by checking bibliographic details or faffing around with Endnote, footnotes or formatting.  (Though I did note that they needed to be checked and added)

It was fun.  Not a better way of writing, just different.  A decade ago I had to learn how to think and type togther, nowadays it is a treat to think without typing!  Obviously I will have to type up some of what I wrote - and it will get edited and revised in the process.  Obviously I will need to tighten up the language - farewell to my lovely adjectives and non essential illustrations from real life - but at least I have something to show for my morning's endeavours: six sides of narrow lined A4 manuscript which, being in pencil, will not fade with time and, after today, cannot be successfully erased (don't ask me why, I don't know the chemistry or physics of it).

I am intrigued by the diffenrence in feel of the two approaches to 'writing' and their relative merits.  My handwritten spelling is infinitely better than the typed version, and I omit less words due to brain being faster than fingers.  My English often flows better on paper and is less 'report like' perhaps because of subconscious associations?  But the bottom line - of time and deadlines means that inevitably most stuff has to pass from brain to computer with its only 'mulling' being when I'm doing other things.  In the days when I had a real job, most of my 'work' was paper and pencil/pen and the only typing the formal write-ups.  It was only once I started writing essays the change took place.  Maybe I need to rediscover my analogue intelligence?