J. Mark Miller | A Writer's Fantasy |

One of the most exciting aspects of writing, for me, is the process of discovery. I’ve found myriad layers of discovery from finding what’s in my imagination, discovering the motivations and personality traits of my characters, and most important, self-discovery.

As I’ve made the commitment to be more intentional about my writing over the last year, I’ve been learning what does and doesn’t work for me in the writing process. My first completed novel was one I had been working on half-heartedly for nearly ten years. I finally decided about a year ago to buckle down and finish it, spending a month rewriting and re-charting the 60,000 some-odd words I’d already produced, then finishing the first draft in about a month or so.

What was interesting about the process was how I unconsciously chose to approach the manual aspect of writing—good old paper and pencil. I purchased a five-subject spiral notebook, and went to work a few hours each day writing the remaining manuscript by hand, finishing it sometime in early October.

There’s a point to this story, so hang with me. The remainder of October was spent typing the hand-written manuscript into my computer, and though it was the extra step, it really became something of a blessing. During the transcription process, I was able to essentially do the first round of editing, so in the long run the time was not wasted.

When November came around, I was done with the transcription, and NaNoWriMo was under way. I had downloaded the trial version of Scrivener, determined to give it a real run for the money since I could purchase it at half price after winning NaNo. So here I was, suddenly shifting from writing a first draft by hand to writing on my laptop. Granted, I didn’t know if I could keep the minimum pace necessary to complete 50,000 words in 30 days writing my hand, but I suspect in hindsight I would have.

In fact, I now have suspicions I would have well exceeded the word count.

You see, I’ve since completed that NaNo novel, and as I’ve been going back to do a first round of revision, I’m finding I don’t like the voice of the novel as well as my hand-written one. Even after NaNo was over, and the pressure to produce a minimum word count was gone, I continued forging ahead on the laptop. I fell in love with Scrivener and used it daily to complete the first draft.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve taken up plotting a new novel, and a short story as well. Without thinking about it, I’ve found myself with pencil and paper in hand, writing out the plots and notes to these stories by hand. I’m enjoying the process so much more than when sitting on the couch with my laptop, and I’m finding myself much less easily distracted. The whole experience feels more organic and natural to me, and I know I’m producing a better first draft.

NaNo is approaching, and I’m considering doing it by hand. Since I can enter a word count number of my own without using the official word counter, I’m thinking I can just figure out how many words per hand-written page I average and use that as a guide for my daily goal and word count. Sure, I’ll have to type it all up later, but I think I’ll come out with a much tighter manuscript in the end.