Going Analogue

In a previous post I talked about how I’d discovered the world of Japanese stationery. This time I want to talk about how that new found interest of mine has started filtering into my daily routine.

Most of my writing, lists and general note taking has been done with the help of many, many useful apps on my iPhone, iPad or MacBook. This year though I’ve slowly moved to an analogue system of writing everything down by hand. In fact, this very post was written with a Lamy Safari fountain pen on a Maruman Mnemosyne N188 pad.

Now why on earth would I want to do that when I can reminders, lists and anything else I desire on my phone, tablet or laptop? Well the truth of it is that I simply miss the feeling of writing , the ability of seeing a blank page and filling it with words, sentences and paragraphs that I have created. There’s just something more tangible and satisfying, almost a more connected feeling, than merely typing it out on a keyboard.

Analogue writing is also the ultimate distraction free writing environment. There are no icons, alerts, notifications, emails or social feeds to distract you from your writing. Pen and paper are the best way to separate yourself from the outside world and just concentrate on the words in front of you and there is just something ultimately liberating about that.

Some of the benefits of digital writing such as being able to backup your writing and correcting it on the fly are things that are easy to compensate for or to bring into your writing routine as long as you plan for them ahead of time. Scanning in your written notes with apps like Evernote or Scanbot or proper archival storage helps you find anything you may have jotted down in the past. And sometimes having spelling and grammar checking can be more of a hindrance to the flow of your writing by constantly taking you out of your writing zone. Most of the time I’ve found myself writing longer and more often when I haven’t had to constantly stop and edit what I’ve wrote.

Probably my greatest joy personally though is not having to worry about my word count. I always stress about whether I’ve written too much or too little but when I use a pen and paper the words flow more easily for me and I feel far more comfortable writing.

Future posts will probably use this same format of being written up first on paper and then being typed up in Desk or Editorial before being posted here. I might not necessarily be posting more often but I might certainly be posting longer pieces!

• Writing