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The Pencil and the Keyboard

What’s better for your creativity: handwriting or typing? Here is a short but fascinating video making the case for both as essential tools:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89vzfTFu1Vw]

The basic suggestion here is to use handwriting for note-taking, brainstorming, and synthesizing ideas for yourself, but to use a computer to create pieces that give information to others. Or more simply, always carry a pencil and learn to type faster.

As a writer who frequently switches back and forth, this rings true for me. All my poems begin as scribbly drafts on paper, but many an article or blog post was written completely digitally, when my fingers need to keep up with my ideas. (This may also explain why, since breaking my arm a few weeks ago, I’ve come up with a ton of ideas but have nothing to show for it. Science! One-hand typing is hard. Yes, I am making excuses.)

So let’s discuss. Writers, what’s your preference, and when do you pick a keyboard over a pen? Do you find your medium affects your ideas? Artists of other types (music, visual arts, etc), what role does technology play in your creative process?

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