Author Ruth Frances Long on how almost everything she writes begins through writing longhand . . .
Back in 2015 I did the #amwritingchallenge, a brilliant project started by Jaime Lee Mann encouraging writers to post a series of pictures on Instagram over the course of the month of June, and I realised that of all the posts relating to current manuscrips, my photo was one of few that was not of a computer screen.
It’s a long time ago now but not very much has changed. I’ve written over 20 books now, moving from YA to adult, and from Ruth Frances Long to Jessica Thorne and back again, but deep down a lot of the post below remains just as true now as then. I still love to write longhand. I probably type more now than I did back then, but whenever I need to think, to figure something out, or simply to write for pleasure, I open a notebook and pick up a pen. So here is my updated post on Writing Longhand.
It’s somewhat old fashioned I suppose, but almost everything I write begins longhand. There’s something about the paper and the pen, the curve of each letter. It lets me think, opens that inner door to the imagination. Whenever I’m starting in on a new project I know (now) that I will need to write by hand first of all. That doesn’t mean the whole way through of course, although that will happen on occasion as well. Every book is different. Never say never.
But I spend so much time working on computers. I type very quickly, sometimes more quickly than I can think. And going the longer, slower road can be very enlightening.
The process, such as it is, goes like this.
Find the right notebook. Writing longhand is a tactile experience for me and engages all the senses. I have been seen on more than one occasion pawing through notebooks in shops, feeling the pages. Yes, it’s embarrassing. They don’t have to be fancy, but the paper has to feel right. (I know, I know!)
I used to always gather together beautiful notebooks and never use them but now I feel life is too short. I decided to use them all, the prettier the better. I used to think that for a really gorgeous notebook you had to be writing something really special. But then I realised, everything we write is special. Because we are the ones writing it. So use that beautiful notebooks so long as it is right for you.
Find the right pen. I love my fountain pen. But I’ve been told it makes a scratchy noise if I’m writing in bed late at night. Plus I am bad at remembering to buy ink cartridges. I used to prefer black ink but now I use all the colours I want to. Sometimes I use different colours for different projects, sometimes a plain black gel pen. The pen has to feel right, something about the way the ink flows, the weight of it in my hand, the way I hold it. And the ink has to smell right too. Fragranced ink can go and jump. I’ll have none of that around here.
Paper, pen, ink…
Then I write. It’s as simple as that. This part has never changed. I write, and I doodle in the margins and I scribble things out and I squeeze things in. Writing longhand is very freeing for me. I think, when faced with a white page on a screen I freeze a little. When you start to type words, they look so formal and fixed, as if they can no longer be changed. But on a notebook, with a pen, there isn’t that sense of finality.
My first interactions with language, with creating words, happened with a pencil and paper, then with a pen. Computers were a long way off. (Filling secret, special rooms far far away in fact). Future writers may well have the same relationship with the screen that I have with the pen and paper.
Often it doesn’t take long before I start typing as well. I build books scene by scene. Sometimes in strict narrative order, sometimes out of order. It depends on the story. I type up a scene I have written, editing as I go so my first draft is often really my second. Sometimes my brain leaps onwards and I continue to type after the handwritten scene is completed. Sometimes my brain wants to go back to longhand, to write and draw out those words, to dawdle and doodle in the margins and allow my brain the time and the patience to write.
We live in a very fast world. There is something meditative about writing longhand, about reaching back and remembering why we first wrote this way. Because the story comes, the magic works, the pen whispers on the paper, curving its way around letters, forming words and it’s lovely to take the time to enjoy that.
I’ve filled a fair few notebooks over the years. Here are just a few…
Oh, and the tea helps. Naturally.
(c) Ruth Frances Long
The Book of Gold is coming out on the 28th November from Hodderscape. Sam Blake will be launching it in The Gutter Bookshop at 6.30pm. All welcome.
About The Book of Gold by Ruth Frances Long:
A desperate thief. A magical book. And a heist for the ages.
There’s only one thing notorious thief Lyta loves more than a big score; her little brother, Kit. But when Kit is arrested for producing seditious pamphlets, he stands to lose not only his printing press, but possibly his life.
In exchange for her brother’s freedom, Lyta strikes a daring bargain with the king -she will steal the infamous Book of Gold, a mysterious manuscript reputed to be hiding vast magical power within.
It’s just the kind of challenge Lyta relishes, but she didn’t bargain for a secretive scholar, her brother’s interference, or the return of handsome and brooding Captain Sylvian Chant, once her lover and partner in crime, now an incorruptible royal bodyguard . . .
Order your copy of The Book of Gold by Ruth Frances Long online here.
