Writing, for me, was all about pain.

Obviously if you’re in emotional pain, you have something to write about, but I meant physical pain. My right ring finger hurts when I write. And I think that’s why it’s easier for me to express emotion when I write than when I type. Typing is quick, smooth, and easy. I can type at least three times as quickly as I can write. But writing is so much more… painful.

And that pain acts as a motivator. It’s a restraint, and restraints breed creativity. If ever word hurts, I choose them more carefully. If I write slowly, I forget the unimportant ideas and leave them out. I’m left with just what I wanted to say.

I used to write all day long, everyday when I was in school. I also used to write all day long, everyday when I was on vacation. I bought those micro-perforated three-hole-punched college-lined one-hundred-sheet Mead notebooks and filled them up using the endless supply of silver Parker Jotters from my parents’ house.

When I wanted to write big, I wrote big. When I wanted to write soft, I wrote soft. And when I wrote hard, it hurt more. Feeling everything I wrote, physically, in my hand, made me care a lot more about what I was writing. Seeing every word in my awful, ugly, childish handwriting made it seem so much more effective.

Now I’ve become accustomed to typing, and all I ever write is my name or the tip and total on a charge receipt. And I think that’s sad.