Want to Be a Writing Prodigy?

Releasing your full creative potential is risky business

When you first discovered that you liked to write, were you typing at a keyboard, or were you holding a pencil? If you took to writing as a child, it was the latter.

You may not have been aware then that handwriting made your brain agile and creative. All you knew was that you enjoyed words, both reading and writing them.

Maybe you were that kid who was given a writing prompt in grade school and got lost filling a page with words and ideas. When the time was up, you easily had a few complete pages.

Maybe, like me, you were given a blank journal as a birthday gift and you began writing a book all your own. Whatever else happened in life, you knew at a young age that putting words to your intimate reality was something that only you could do. You identified as a writer. In fact, you were a writer. You had a book to prove it.

Perhaps your third-grade teacher allowed you to skip English class and sit out in the hallway so you had quiet time to write your play? You included hand-drawn pictures (because no one told you a play didn’t include pictures) of pirates and candy and pioneers — some mishmash of Little House on the Prairie, a children’s book that belonged to your younger brother, and the game of Candyland. This before fan fiction was even a thing.

Or you were one of the few dorks how actually relished diagramming sentences in the fifth grade. You had a pouch with red and black pens, a ruler, and a special notebook just for this task.

How lucky the child-writers

Do children still get to enjoy this rare pleasure? Do adults notice? I live in a Texas school district where athletics trumps all. You never open the local news to see a picture of a kid hunched over a desk writing by the glow of a task lamp, but they’re here. There are different kinds of Friday Night Lights, baby.

Kids who write do so in private, often filling pages and notebooks in secret. All you need is a quiet room and some time, and a pen and paper, of course... no computer, word processor, or laptop is necessary. And if you grew up in the 70s and 80s, writing was the perfect activity for bookish types of a certain age.

It’s also an amazing activity for unleashing creativity in adults if you can stand the slow, sometimes hypnotic pace of handwriting.

Take it slow and see what happens

An accomplished pianist I know once pointed out that adults who want to learn the piano are never content to start with Row, Row, Row Your Boat. They want to jump right into the Moonlight Sonata. Being able to slow down practice is a gift learned young.

The craft of writing — all art, actually — is hard work. Just like the young volleyball recruit going through her drills and the basketball player’s early morning hoops, creatives must also accept the tedious pace of working through their craft.

When you’re writing with a pen in your hand, moving over a notebook, you are plumbing a deep, ancient, creative source.

Since I could hold a pen, I’ve written nearly every day of my life — at least a few words. I’ve used journals, blank books, and blogs. I’ve used pens and pencils and keyboards on all types of machines. And I can attest to the power of handwriting.

There’s something about paper that helps me solidify thoughts better than a backlit screen. I’ve rarely wanted to exchange that privilege with another. Writing on paper, with a pencil or pen, is a primal, creative act that pays huge creative dividends. Although I can write faster on a keyboard, I could never give up writing by hand. I’d feel like I was missing something deeper and messier.

But the best writers are touch typists, right?

I know what you’re thinking, handwriting is so slow and tedious. You can’t read your own writing after you’re done. Your hand cramps. If you come up with anything good you just have to sit at a keyboard and re-write it anyway. I agree with all of that.

I’ve read many articles about successful writers who started writing as adults because they figured out how to write fast and furious. They naturally developed a voice that vibes great with their internet audience. They easily write/type in several languages and crank out stories like a machine. Maybe you, too, want to be that writer whose Medium earnings blow 98% of the rest of us out of the water. Though I practice daily, I’m not there yet.

Somewhere in every writer, though, there’s a voice that won’t go away. When I hear mine most clearly, I’m usually not typing. I’m holding a pen. Certain glittering, literary treasures only emerge when you write your sentences longhand.

Proficient learners are not necessarily prolific writers

In 2014, a widely circulated study showed that students who took class notes with a pen on paper retained complex concepts better than those who took notes on a laptop.

The research doesn’t say which students got better grades.

The ones who took notes the old-school way acquired knowledge that stuck. Turns out the ones who tapped notes on a keyboard merely regurgitated what the professor said verbatim, resulting in shallower processing. When it came time to reformulate the lessons, they came up short.

When students listen, process, and summarize concepts in longhand, they learn more during the actual lesson. Their brains were engaged in ways the typists were not. Makes sense.

The good and bad news is that the hand writers produce fewer words. They also tend to get, you know… creative. Since it takes longer to handwrite than type, the students actually think about what the instructor is saying and quickly pen it to paper, making sense in whatever way their brain decides is best. Rounding sharp corners, the working brain causes problems. At least I’ve found this to be true.

The research doesn’t say which students got better grades. Sometimes, overthinkers can make a beautiful mess of ideas as they churn them through their gray matter.

Beyond note-taking, you stir the creative process — often more than you bargain for — when you write out your thoughts longhand.

This 30-year journaling trend

Artistic types hoping to stimulate their creative juices widely adopted Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages practice, which she describes in her 1992 book The Artist’s Way. Almost thirty years later, it’s still #1 on Amazon in the popular psychology, creativity, and genius category. [Note: the “Genius” category.]

People swear by this stream-of-consciousness journal-writing practice first thing in the morning — I have occasionally done morning pages throughout my life, although I’m not in a regular habit.

Many writers intuitively know that writing by hand with a good pencil or gel pen brings out their genius. What is going on in the brain that makes handwriting so key to the creative process? Is there any conclusive neuroscience research to back up the claim that handwriting that unlocks creativity?

Some startling handwriting facts

Brain scans show you use more parts of the brain when you write by hand. Think about it: your hand needs to move over the paper and grip the pen (motor skills). You must remember how to form the letters (memory). You fill a page with lines of cursive (spatial reasoning). You construct sentences from thoughts (imagination and creativity). You also smell the ink and feel paper (tactile pleasures). Your entire brain is firing away.

There’s also a link between handwriting and mindfulness. When you write, your brain lights up just as it would if you were meditating. This is great news for those who strive for productive mornings that don’t end up killing half of your workday. Now you can skip the meditation practice and just write. One less thing.

Certain glittering, literary treasures only emerge when you write your sentences longhand.

The handwriting child has an edge

There’s something childlike and exploratory about handwriting — about writers in general, but those who write by hand, especially.

Since you’re activating more parts of the brain at once, you give it a better workout, so to speak. This is a bonus if you’re an actual child. Children who learn to handwrite (and use it regularly) tend to write “more words, faster, and to express more ideas” than those who use a keyboard.

Working brains cause problems. I’ve found this to be true… Sometimes, overthinkers can make a beautiful mess of ideas as they churn them through their gray matter.

As a child who wrote a lot, I can attest to certain benefits. Some of them admittedly of the navel-gazing sort. But also the ability to write a decent college essay; being the go-to pro-bono writer of nonprofit press releases; not embarrassing oneself while composing interoffice emails; and the ability to land an average (but better than minimum wage) writing job in the first place.

Meanwhile, written in the off-hours are there are these therapeutic personal essays…

I told you it gets messy. I suspect sometimes that too much creativity — can you have too much? — makes it difficult to make real money writing. Just a hunch.

Is your creative edge worth it?

I’m reminded of the time I visited my brother in the workshop of the furniture maker who apprenticed him. My brother is a master craftsman of wood. The kind of carpenter who hand planes curving staircases and dovetails the joinery of drawers. He fusses over woodworking details very few people can appreciate or afford.

As we were walking around the shop I spotted a cardboard box from Ikea with the name of some chintzy shelving system — Kallax or Billy. Who knows how it got there, but its existence among the sawdust mocked the shop's efforts. “Doing some resale?” I kidded him.

Why work so hard when others make it look so easy? Recently a Medium writer I follow — someone I’ll bet is all too familiar with the handwriting/creativity link — wrote a post about that insulting, ubiquitous “Hi” story that parked on everyone’s Medium home screen for days.

I see you, Alison Acheson. So much for all that talk about writing great headlines.

Creative writing is work, but would you really want it any other way?

What was going on in our growing brains as we handwrote those stories, poems, songs, experiences, and secrets? Did this make us different from our childhood peers who couldn’t care less about writing?

A lot, and yes. William Klemm, a neuroscientist, writes,

There is a whole field of research known as “haptics,” which includes the interactions of touch, hand movements, and brain function. Cursive writing helps train the brain to integrate visual, and tactile information and fine motor dexterity. School systems, driven by ill-informed ideologues and federal mandate, are becoming obsessed with testing knowledge at the expense of training kids to develop better capacity for acquiring knowledge.

Although many people associate haptics with technology, it’s an attempt to substitute for the natural, effective acquisition of knowledge our species has used over millennia. Homo Sapiens learn by doing, and that involves using our hands through touch, motion, and proprioception, an understanding of our bodies in space. When you’re writing with a pen in your hand, moving over a notebook, you are plumbing a deep, ancient, creative source.

Yes, it’s faster to write/touch-type on a keyboard. Indeed, I outline and write most stories (some that start in a journal) on my keyboard. But if you want to punch through the barrier of creativity that keeps you from producing revelatory work, consider grabbing a 99-cent notebook and a humble gel pen. It could be the difference between average and unprecedented creativity.

Paper and pens are a writer’s tools. Honor the craft of writing and you just might gain insights that you’d never access without your hand gripping a pen.