Typing, Typing, Typing

The good of writing my books by hand, with my clipboard, narrow-ruled pad of white paper, and Pilot Razor Point fine-tipped black marker pen, is that I can write them so cozily anywhere. I can write in the airport while I'm waiting to board the plane; I can write on the plane cruising at 35,000 feet; I can write lying in my bed in a motel room in Warrensburg, Missouri; I can write in a new friend's charming guestroom while listening to her play her original compositions on piano and hammered dulcimer; I can write by a kiva fire in Taos; I can write in a crowded French patisserie in Santa Fe.

The bad of writing my books by hand is that when I come home from all this cozy writing I have to type up heaps and heaps of pages of my nearly illegible handwriting.

Usually I don't mind typing up my chapters after I finish writing them. It gives me an opportunity for a round of revision as I go, changing a word here, a word there, eliminating repetition, adding a needed transition. But usually I do this a chapter at a time.

I wrote six chapters during my spring break travels. Typed, this will be around 50 double-spaced pages. That is a lot of typing to do, especially when I'm on fire to write more new chapters - I'm so close to the end of the first full draft of this book, with maybe just another six more chapters to go. But I need to stop writing today and start typing, or else I'll be facing the need to type 100 double-spaced pages. Besides, my handwriting is so truly illegible - more of a shorthand than actual cursive - that I can't even read it myself if I wait too long; I can read it only because something about those squiggles on the page triggers a recent memory of what I actually wrote.

So today that's what I'm going to be doing: typing, typing, typing.