blog « Robin Writes

From our RHP/AOTSP intern, Rachel, on the mechanics of writing – she makes some great points! Tell us, in the comments, what you think about her methods and how you feel about writing versus typing:

There are many different ways to tell stories. People first told stories orally and through art. As we further developed our languages and made industrial advancements, we moved to writing, making movies, and using the different computer, Internet, and other digital technologies.

I personally tend toward the old-fashioned route when it comes to actually telling my own stories. I like writing. And when I mean writing, I mean the physical act of holding a utensil and moving one’s hand to draw letters. Not typing on a computer. There’s something a bit different that allows my thoughts to flow better when I physically write than anything else. I am sad and a little bit upset when I hear about schools thinking about not teaching students how to hand write any more. They can learn their letters by using the keys on the keyboard. They can type. Why do they need to know how to write? Well, besides the fact that they need to be able to sign their names on receipts and documents and such. For me, it can be therapeutic, it can help me remember things, it can help me get my thoughts out onto a physical thing that I can hold in my hands and scribble on, and it doesn’t rely on any electricity. It’s consistent. It’s concrete. It’s stable. I love writing so much that I’ll volunteer to write in group activities and I’ll write out my lists and outlines by hand before doing anything else with them. I highly doubt I’ll ever use a laptop over paper to take notes. Are future generations going to miss out? I can’t imagine my life not knowing how to write things by hand. What if the power goes out? What if the technology runs into glitches or stops working properly? Will the future generations be at a loss?

Is technology going to ruin our lives?

But then again, how did we come to be able to mass-produce books, magazines, and other types of literature? How do we continually find ways to reach more people (it’s not called social media for nothing, you know)? Technological advances! I could go back and forth for hours on why technology is helping or hurting our literary culture, or even society as a whole. The bottom line is that we need to find a balance – using technology to our advantage, but also checking to make sure we are protected from its disadvantages.

What are your thoughts?

Every writer needs to take a break occasionally, step back, reassess, and so forth. Where do you go and/or what do you do? A particular place? A certain activity? What gets you going again, what inspires you?

Me, I go to camp. Yes, the same camp in REDUCED and REUSED. Yes, it’s still there, and still operating. Bonus: I got to go TWICE this week!

See, it all started in 1972: one of my second-grade friends wanted to go to camp and asked me to come with her. I went back every year, once staying for two two-week sessions, and once for the whole summer. It was awesome! Well, obviously, I kept going back… and then I was on staff. That was awesome too – after a few years, though, I had to go out into the real world. Sigh.

I’d visited a few times since, but a couple years ago started going down every summer for an alumni campfire. And then I had that salsa-induced dream, the one that inspired REDUCED, and I just knew – based on cues from that dream – that camp was the location for the novel.

Oh, there are differences: the camp isn’t named, neither are the locations within the camp except for the seven hills around the perimeter. And in the books, the camp is “abandoned,” but it’s still in use today. That’s why I was down there this week – to do a presentation on camp counseling.

It’s a little hard to go back… So much has changed, little things. It’s rather surreal.

Other things stay the same: the enthusiasm of the staff, their eagerness to work with the campers; their curiosity about the camp itself. You can almost see, in the group, the faces of old staff members that you knew way back when – some things don’t change at all. These kids – yes, kids, they weren’t even born until well after my last year down there – they believe. They believe in camp, this camp, and as long as they keep coming, and keep coming back, many things won’t change at all.

This is what inspires me, what rejuvenates my writing. And, too, there’s the feeling, the atmosphere, the green, the cedar, the open meadows, the rolling hills. Big, blue sky overhead. When I turn onto the camp road and see the lake off to the left, I feel like I’m eight years old again. Or eighteen.