Writing long-hand

A coworker of mine was sweet enough to give me a gorgeous Moleskine notebook–120 pages, can lie almost perfectly flat when open, and a paper cover that can be drawn on.

Perfect for writing short stories.

It’s great because I don’t get caught up in the foibles of technology that interfere with getting into a flow. I don’t have to worry about making sure I have the right USB drive in, or having internet access. It also really helps with letting a story go until its real end. It’s not a matter of word counts and limiting terms like “flash fiction”; it’s just… writing.

Problem is, of course, it’s slower. It takes me a few days to write a story of the length of “Blackout“. Getting it typed up with initial edits takes another couple of hours, and putting in Gregory‘s edits takes a little bit longer.

That shakes out to about a full week turn-around for a 2k-3k word story. I’m a full story ahead at this point (and getting ahead-er), so it works.

Wouldn’t want to do it for my novels, though. That’d be a little much.