For all that the phrase "paperless office" has been driven into the ground over the past fifteen years or so, and as much as it is nice to avoid having to use paper whenever possible, I'm still a big believer in paper writing. As Julia Cameron notes in The Artist's Way, there is something natural and organic about the process of putting pencil or pen to paper that simply can't be duplicated by typing something out on a computer keyboard. The daily journaling I've done since I first read The Artist's Way nearly seven years ago -- the infamous "Morning Pages" -- is a prime example of writing that pretty much needs to be done by hand, because writing by hand forces to slow down and really think about what you're saying, and if journaling is supposed to accomplish anything, it's to let you work out your thoughts and get them down somewhere so you don't worry so much about them later.
That being said, there is a time for writing by hand, and there is a time for opening up your word processor of choice and going to town on something. I don't even want to think about how much harder writing my graduate papers would have been if I'd only had pen-and-paper to work on, or for that matter even a typewriter. When I write fiction, I use a computer simply because it's much easier for me to cut-and-paste parts and move them around, plus when it comes to fiction I tend to think and develop my ideas so quickly that I need the added speed that typing affords me. However, I just can't write poetry by typing it out here; for some reason I simply must write poetry by hand. Even after I've got poetry typed up and I want to edit it, I simply have to print out a copy to really look at it; trying to do so on a computer screen doesn't work for me.
I make a point, however, of making the most of what paper I do use. Whenever I have a computer printout that goes bad, whether because I notice an error in something I've typed after I print it out or the ink cartridge runs low or what have you, instead of simply throwing the paper out I stick it into the envelope compartment of my printer stand. While this curls the paper up too much to feed it through my computer again, I can still write on the other side, and thus I don't have to use other paper or sticky notes for such purposes. I've probably saved a fair bit of money this way, and more importantly I've used up a little less paper than I would have otherwise. Even if it's a fairly small amount compared to how much paper is out there, it helps me to feel a little better.
Anyway, I've been using these old papers a lot lately for general note-taking, both for the work that's kept me so busy these past few weeks as well as for other small things. This kind of brings up a couple of interesting things. First of all, I can't help but look at the printed sides of the paper before I use the other sides, and a lot of the papers I've been pulling out of my little scrap compartment lately have been from my undergraduate creative writing classes, fragments of old stories and poems. It's interesting to look at them and chart my development as a writer, to be sure. Secondly, though, my desk is now looking absolutely ridiculous with how much paper is on it. Back when I first got this desk I thought it was too big, and that I'd never use all the space there was on it. Now I'm going to have to look into getting a card table or something just to give me more space on which to lay all of my notes and stuff.
joepet at 29/5/07 08:19: