I was reading an interview in Time with David McCullough (the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, if the name doesn’t ring a bell), and this question caught my attention:

Q: We don’t write letters on paper anymore. How will this affect the study of history?

The loss of people writing–writing a composition, a letter or a report–is not just the loss for the record. It’s the loss of the process of working your thoughts out on paper, of having an idea that you would never have had if you weren’t [writing]. And that’s a handicap. People [I research] were writing letters every day. That was calisthenics for the brain.

Calisthenics for the brain. Isn’t that a fantastic image?

Because it’s true. Just like my body feels sluggish if I don’t at least get out for a walk with the dog every day, so does my brain on days it doesn’t do much.

Granted, every brain deserves a lazy Sunday curled up with a book or settled on the couch watching sports or a cheesy movie. But … you can’t forget that it’s a muscle that needs to be used, too.

Lots of people realize this already. They do crossword puzzles or play sudoku online. They read everything they can get their hands on, or watch documentaries about obscure subjects on television. They take classes at the community college and visit museums, and learn about new technology on the internet.

I mean, not everybody turns into a couch potato watching reality-tv after dinner every night, right?

But, I love McCullough’s point about the importance of working things out on paper, and how it can lead to ideas you might not have had otherwise.

There’s something to be said for the simple hand-brain coordination of moving a pen across a page. Think of all the notes you took in classes at school when the teacher’s lecture went in one ear, down past the shoulder and out the hand onto the notebook without ever pausing in the brain. And then, haven’t you ever had the experience of doodling, jotting down random, crazy, silly thoughts and then looked at your page and realized you’d just solved a problem, or done something brilliant without consciously thinking about it?

As much as I love typing on a keyboard these days–if only because it’s legible which you can’t exactly say about my handwriting–it’s still a different kind of “writing” than the kind you do with a pen. No matter how good a touch-typist you are. You can’t doodle in a word-processing program, after all.

Mind-mapping is all the rage these days, too–putting all your thoughts and ideas about a project in one place in a seemingly random order so that you can line things up and visually SEE those connections. Everybody’s brain works differently. Some of us are visual thinkers who need visual aids to understand things. Some learn best by hearing, some by reading … but ultimately it comes back to getting the ideas on our heads down on paper.

Whether that paper is made from tree pulp or pixels on a computer screen doesn’t matter, not really. It might matter to historians down the ages who are using Windows 2703-B on their brain-embedded computers and can’t access our lame attempts at digital “permanence” any more, but we can’t be concerned with them. For the moment, what matters is that we not only THINK but that we take our responsibility to record it in some fashion seriously.

Because our brains deserve the workout. Calisthenics for the brain. And the best part? Unlike heading to the gym for an hour of sweat and calorie-burning, at the end of an hour of writing–of drawing connections and getting words and thoughts on paper–you’ve got something solid to show for it.

Now, go and exercise that brain of yours. Write something!

(And, as an interesting side note, I saw this post linked on Twitter today–about the differences between writing by hand or writing by keyboard, which I thought particularly interesting as I mulled over this blog post of my own.)

What do YOU think?

Last time we talked about the reasons people don’t like to write.

Today, we’re going to talk about ways to help them.

• Dictate into a recorder rather than typing. Maybe it’s the physical act of getting words out of your head and onto paper/screen that’s too intimidating. So just try doing it aloud. Countless famous writers in the history of the world have done this.
• Imagine yourself talking to a friend, a client, or a student. Still having trouble getting the words to flow normally? Be conversational and try to think how you would tell this to someone who needs to know.
• ACTUALLY talk to a friend, but record the session to transcribe later. (Bonus points if they can take dictation and do this for you.)
• Take a notebook and go sit somewhere comfortable, away from the scary, empty computer screen. Sometimes just moving to a different, low-key environment helps creativity flow. Writers write in coffeehouses for a reason, you know, and it’s not just the copious amounts of caffeine. (Of course this assumes you’ll be able to read your handwriting later on)
• Jot down notes to yourself in an email. This becomes no-pressure writing because you’re just electronically talking to yourself, but once you send the email, voila, you’ve got text that you can read and edit and tweak.
• Get something, anything, down on the screen. Stilted phrases. Sentence fragments. Half-realized, wandering thoughts. Anything at all. Then walk away and don’t even look at it until tomorrow.
• Then, after your writing has rested, go back and read your fragments, no matter how unstructured, and try to fill them out for people who don’t know as much as you do.
• Ask a friend or family member to read your scribbles and make suggestions on how to fix them.
• Pretend that everything is riding on this–your livelihood, your family, your home. If you don’t get this written, you’ll lose everything.The sun will cease to shine. Your life as you know it will end, so–you’ve GOT to do this.
• Or, if that’s too much pressure (grin), Tell yourself that NOTHING is riding on this. You’re just idly passing the time, randomly putting words on a page just for the hell of it. No pressure.
• Start a journal. I know. You’re having trouble writing the things you need to write and I’m suggesting a completely unnecessary journal of more writing. But, bear with me. Sometimes, all you need to do to be able to write is to PRACTICE writing. You know, somewhere it doesn’t matter in the least, and what you say doesn’t mean anything to anyone but you. The important thing is that you’ll start getting used to putting words on a page.
• Start by describing something. What do you see outside your window? What color are the leaves? Really? Green? That’s the best you can do? What KIND of green? Are they all exactly the same color? Are they plush and healthy? Are they in direct sun so that they’re sparkling? Or in shadow? You can delete this later, but for now, just get your fingers and your brain moving.
• Take typing lessons. Maybe part of your problem is that you don’t feel comfortable enough with a keyboard. Maybe you spend so much time hunt-and-pecking for the letters, your brain’s getting distracted by the mechanics of it. Try one of those typing-tutor programs. Even if you already know how to touch-type, you’ll improve your time and that never hurt anyone. Sometimes just getting used to hitting the keys is enough to segue from “asas asas adad adad afaf afaf agag agag” to real words.
• Type randomly. Honestly, it doesn’t matter what you have to write. If you truly can’t get started, just type random gibberish and work on moving toward full, random sentences, and then into sentences on a topic (any topic), and then, when you’re ready, about whatever you actually should be writing in the first place. (Just, um, don’t forget to delete the gibberish later on.)

Okay … I’m tapped out. What suggestions do YOU have for people who don’t like to write, but have to?

I’ve been told that there are people who don’t like to write.

I know. It was a shock to me, too.

I don’t mean that feeling that writers get when they can’t focus, or when they dread sitting down at their desks and come up with all sorts of other tasks that need to be done right this second in order to put off the inevitable. Word avoidance isn’t what I mean.

No, I’m talking about people who actually don’t like writing. At all. Any form of it. The kinds of people who can just about summon up the energy to write “Happy birthday. Love Dad” on your annual card. Or the people who write one line emails like, “I made reservations for dinner next Saturday,” and then sign it with their initials.

I’m not talking about a 15-year old, either, for whom you might be able to blame the texting thing–Kids These Days don’t know how to write full sentences, we’re told.

No, this not-liking-to-write avoidance transcends adolescence. It affects businessmen trying to write memos, mothers emailing teachers, bloggers struggling to post …

The irony is that, in this computer-driven world of ours, writing is more important than ever, and yet more and more people are completely tongue-tied when faced with a blank page (digital or otherwise).

So … what do you do?

As a person who loves words, loves writing, and (while able to procrastinate with the best of them) can usually find something to write down, it’s hard to comprehend how other people can’t summon up three consecutive sentences. For example, I might mention to, oh, my father, that I “only got 500 words written today,” and he’ll look at me speechlessly and say he can’t imagine writing that much in a month. Or, I’ll casually refer to my novel and its 90,000 words and he’ll tell me that he’s never written that many words in his life. The mere thought of being able to do so astounds him.

Now, my father (and other afflicted souls) have plenty to say. You can sit down and have lively conversations with them where they spread good advice, brilliant ideas, and generally interesting factoids about all sorts of subjects. Yet, when you say, “That’s great. You should write it down,” fear sets in.

I know, I know. Many people don’t like to read, so their familiarity with sentence structure may be weak. They not be facile with words because they’re mere nodding acquaintances. But then there are the people (like my father) who take weekly trips to the library to check out new books to read … and yet the idea of writing more than a sentence or two makes him dig in his heels and say, “I can’t!”

My question to you is … why? What makes this happen?

Next time … tips for these poor, lost individuals.