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.

I can't make stuff up on the computer. I can fix it, and put it together, but I have a terrible time creating it. Sometimes I just rewrite it instead of typing it in, but the hard brain part has been done on paper.

I've never had writer's block, which of course will no doubt jinx the crap out of me and cause me to have the mother of all cases. I did stop writing entirely for nine years, but that wasn't blockage; that was raging screaming assholes in the publishing industry (ahem, sorry) making me so disgusted that I stuck WIP in a drawer and said screw it, no book for you people. Well, that, and I lost my in-house editor. I need a WIP editor and really don't trust my own stuff without one.

First drafts, I figure no problem. I've always assumed they were supposed to be sucky, and I could fix them later. But being linear (start at the beginning, etc), I just send drafts to willing victims and let them tell me what's sucky. Then I go back, see if I agree, and fix.

There's probably a difference between real, debilitating writer's block and wanting to grab your plot by the throat, fling it to the floor and strangle it until it makes sense. Throwing it against the wall a few times and eviscerating it with a rusty scalpel also works.

I've never had writer's block, which of course will no doubt jinx the crap out of me and cause me to have the mother of all cases.

I've never really had writer's block. I get genre block. It's been a little more than a year since I've been able to write a new poem, but I've finished two screenplays in that time. I've started a new screenplay which I can't finish, but in the time I've been working on it, I've finished a manuscript of essays. I've decided it's best to just let the brain do what the brain's gonna do.

I did stop writing entirely for nine years, but that wasn't blockage; that was raging screaming assholes in the publishing industry (ahem, sorry)

Don't apologize. I can feel your pain, and then some.