Out of Order

draft mode

I usually write from start to finish. In sequential order. From front to back. Page one to page whatever. It’s unusual for me to write a story out of sequence, but that is what appears to be happening with “Diva”, the Hollywood story that began as an exercise some weeks ago.

It seems fitting to write a story about a movie star the same way a movie about her would be shot—out of order. The scenes are coming the same way, so I’m going with it. I’m also keeping to the writing exercise format, scribbling an initial burst onto paper and polishing it later for posting. The scenes are short and relatively simple, like pieces of a puzzle that will eventually create a picture, and are easily drafted over a lunch break at work. Spontaneity is key. When an idea comes, get it out fast and worry about placement later. Curiously, one scene is sparking another, igniting questions that I want answered, hence … more exercise!

I thought about waiting until it’s a finished story before I post it, but to be honest, I don’t know when or if it will ever be finished. It’s really a bunch of writing exercises. Assuming that the characters are exhausted at some point down the road, the scenes might be arranged into a story called “Diva”, with a definite start and a definite end.

In the meantime, another scene goes up tomorrow. I have two more cooking, to be drafted, polished and posted in due course. After that, who knows? Call the series “ ‘The Development of Diva’ ” and see where it takes us.

Enjoy.

Handwriting ...

.. or writing by hand, otherwise known as longhand, in which I used to write before I bought my first computer in 1994. At the time I thought it would make writing easier, but has it?

Erin Morgenstern’s blog on the 13th referenced an article by Daniel Kraus (read it here) about the joys of writing by hand and the agony of writing by computer. Curious, I clicked over and was inspired by a number of contributing writers to get back in touch with the organic over the mechanical method of wordplay.

I once stockpiled reams of loose leaf paper and Shaeffer ball point refills, but I wrote by hand the way I write by rig: chronologically with no tolerance for errors. If I misspelled a word or disliked a sentence, I’d trash the whole page and copy everything previous to the offending item (not fun when the goof occurred at the bottom of the flipside). Even then, I edited as I wrote, so given how much energy was expended redoing what had already been done for the sake of a pristine page, going electronic eliminated the anxiety of gaffing and enabled me to keep the page clean.

I also ceased to write my journal, and correspondence stalled until I met Nicole a few years later. I’d rarely scrawled more than a sticky note before I started blogging in 2013. That’s when I discovered anew the practical joy of composing by hand. Knowing a post will be transcribed has freed me from the anxiety over keeping the page perfect. When drafting for CR, I’ll cross things out, scribble in the margins, draw arrows and asterisks, black out whole sentences—and spelling? HOO KARES? I’ll get it right in the final, no thanks to spellcheck, either.

“Computering” has made it easier for my crippled paws to keep up with my brain, so I’ll never say that longhand trumps a desktop except that it has an advantage in the mobility department. I see people plugged in at Starbucks, texting their thumbs numb or tapping out characters on a laptop’s cramped keyboard, but I absolutely love the sensual flow of a Sharpie nib over a sheet of bleached bond. Though my precondition makes writing by hand uncomfortable—and illegible—after a while, I’m intrigued enough by the challenge to try writing a story by hand and see how/if it differs from blasting it onto a screen. Every writer has a preference, of course, and I think I know what mine is, but I’ve begun making notes since my memory has grown less reliable. Could be these old-fashioned fuddy-duddies may be on to something …

Paper Chase

Nicole and I play card tag. One of us writes a greeting card and sends it to the other, who promptly (most of the time) replies with another card. It’s one of my greatest pleasures to spend a lunch break sipping ridiculously expensive tea and composing a literary snapshot to my propinquitous (?) poet. Equally joyful is finding an envelope bearing my address in her flashy handwriting when I get home from work. Neither of us has any trouble finding blank cards with cool motifs, but in the event when a “real” letter is warranted, I, at least, am pretty well hooped.

I spent two days last week on the hunt for writing paper. Nothing special; just a pad of six-by-nine in a pretty colour with matching envelopes. I hit office supply stores, art supply shops, paper shops (yes, paper shops), and the downtown Hallmark store, and the closest thing I could find to what I wanted was a heavier-weight 8.5 by 11 in soft gold that was probably meant for laser printing or scrapbooking or drywalling because, short of special-ordering personalized stationery from a highfalutin print shop, ordinary paper for the purpose of handwritten correspondence is extinct in Victoria. An online search rendered similarly dismal results. Nobody stocks quality writing paper anymore. What is a correspondence artist to do?

Well, this one settled for the gold leaf. It turned out to be appropriate, given that I was writing a rave review for Nic’s latest short story—a riveting epic rivaling any of mine for number of pages. The author deserved a “real” letter, written in my illegible scrawl as evidence of my enthusiastic response to her effort. Ink from a pen is more personal and heartfelt than ink blurped from a printer cartridge, even if the font on the latter is easier on the eyes than my cramped and crooked handwriting. The organic nature of putting pen to paper makes it a more meaningful act; love and praise and admiration flow from my heart to my hand through my pen and thus into the very fibres of the paper itself. I become part of the correspondence so when Nic receives it, she can feel my energy as it was when I expressed it. The same applies when I hear from her—before my brain even interprets them, I can tell whether she was bubbly as champagne or flat as old ginger ale by the slant and size of her handwritten characters. Knowing that she handled the paper before sending it on its way brings her a little bit closer, too. Though she is undeniably Nicole when presented in Arial font, I just don’t get the same warmth from an email.

Whining aside, I did find a pad of strawberry-ice-cream-pink notepaper that would have suited perfectly, had strawberry-ice-cream-pink envelopes been available. They weren’t, so I perused the loose paper section in hope of a match among the errant envelopes. Colour, yes; size, no. &$%#.

I bought the paper anyway. It might be worth something someday.