Thursday, October 28, 2010

The flow of ink


Hurrah! It's back, according to this article in the Telegraph - 'the timelessly simple delight of handwriting: of pen in hand, ink on paper and skin on surface as thoughts and images transfer from the imaginative to the material'.

I have to write by hand. My typing is appalling and by the time I'm dealing with a keyboard and screen, I'm editing as I go; the intuitive, sensuous, fluent part of the activity lost. I love my Pelikan fountain pen and the fluidity it gives my hand, the sense of connection from imagination to page. These days I use voice recognition software to get from ink to screen.

When I'm leading workshops, I always get people working with pen and paper, even those who are more comfortable working directly onto a screen. It's gorgeously immediate, can be striking in its visual effect, and as the article says, 'handwriting and notebooking is a trend where austerity meets posterity. Writing is cheap and simple, and won’t get lost if your laptop crashes.'

Also, if you are kleptomaniac about stationery, it's a wonderful excuse.

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