Deb, I'm really torn, because much of it is just over-the-top silly. The high-concept description is pretty much "What if Armistead Maupin Wrote the X-Men?" which is indeed about as silly as it sounds. But I do enjoy it so much....

sounds fun, I'd buy it.

What's wrong with over the top silly?

Hey, I gave the Perry family The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai DVD for Christmas. One of my alltime favourite movies.

Silliness? It's what's for dinner.

My online writing list suggested this, and damn if it doesn't work.

First drafts are a lot easier for me written longhand. When I do them on the computer, I go all lapidary and edit and re-edit and re-edit before I have a paragraph done.

Freehand, I finish the para and move on. I strike through the occasional line, but that is it.

Shitty first drafts rule. Making it impossible to micro-edit makes it easier to birth the work.

Your process may vary.

Betsy, the best part about writing out longhand is that you end up doing a lot of clean-up/editing when you're typing it in, so it makes the first COMPUTER draft a lot cleaner.

I love it.

The thing is, without longhand, my first computer draft tends to be so clean that it's only one perfect paragraph long. NOT good.

My wrists won't me do longhand anymore. Well, my wrists and the arthritis in my fingers. I used to love doing longhand, the shape of the letters themselves would affect the way the story flowed in my head.

I've never done longhand for the actual work; all notes were written out, though. And Then Put Out The Light, for instance, had seventeen pages of notes about environments necessary for the book, all done in a small notebook, mostly on the beach at La Croisette, which is where most of the book takes place anyway.

But I can't write creatively in longhand. That much energy and attention on the physical aspect of getting what I'm doing down? Never happen. Also, I lose things whe I have write longhand. I wrote about thirty words a minute longhand, I type about 150 words a minute on a keyboard.

For me? No longhand. I'm working on full length-novel, what, number nine? And I've never written any other way except keyboard.

Even if I wanted to, multiple sclerosis wouldn't allow it. Typing is hard enough.

I've never worked any way but keyboard, either, and without keyboard I COUDL NOT BE a writer. But longhand is getting me through some first-draft stuckness.

But longhand is getting me through some first-draft stuckness

Whatever works, then. Heck, I'd try braille while hanging from my ankles to get through some blocks.