I think I may be a traditionalist at heart when I sit down to write. While I use the computer for everything, when I first start a marketing or communications project, whether it’s an article, direct mail, or a business plan, I must start first with pen and paper.
While I have improved from my college days when I hand wrote all of my journalism and English papers before typing them, I still find that my ideas and outlines flow better when recorded on paper. But I don’t know if this is true for all writers.
When it’s time to write there are some benefits to working at the computer. It can be less time consuming because you’re formatting and writing at the same time, it’s easy to play with sentence structure and move text around to more appropriate spots, and it saves on paper to recycle.
However, one thing I really like about handwriting copy is that even if I rewrite something or cross it out, should I change my mind I can see what my train of thought was and even revert back to a word or sentence. The drawback of course writing at the computer is that once I’ve deleted a sentence or changed things around there’s no going back unless I save each draft.
I still do my notes and outlines on paper, but have grown more fond of writing at the computer. How about you? What’s your preference and do you think it affects your writing?