This week I found out that a writer friend of mine still uses a pencil /pen and paper to write her stories. I was astonished! I said, really? Do you really still do that?

Then, it got me thinking! I still walk around with a notepad and a pen – although I don’t really write anything on it. But I still carry it around, “just in case” my phone or tablet’s battery dies out. Imagine that you’re in a bank, your phone dies, and you just happen to have the most-wonderful, out-of-the-blue, killing topic for a book, and you have nowhere to write it on. What a nightmare! That’s why my pen and notepad are still there.

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Still, I haven’t started a story in a notepad in years. The last time was during a Literature class in 2008. I had this one great idea, and, in the middle of the class, I wrote like ten pages for a first chapter. Honestly, the story is still there, outlined, two or three chapters written, but still in a drawer. One day, maybe, it will find the way to the computer.

Many people, though, still feel that pleasure in going to a stationary shop, choosing an expensive notebook, smooth writing pens, and spending hours writing in it. Although I do love spending money in shops like that, I haven’t been able to write much with a pen. It hurts my fingers and wrist, and I can’t get to the point as fast as I would in a keyboard. I write so much faster on the computer, almost as quickly as the words pop up in my head – so I don’t get lost that easily.

I guess it all depends on how old you are and how much time you have spent writing on a computer or paper. I started to write seriously when I was 12, and I started in a notebook. However, after learning how to type (yes, we did that 20 years ago, we actually had typing classes, and I went to a typing school), I actually moved to the computer, which made sense to me, it was faster.

But the old technology is years away from becoming obsolete, of course. Research shows that – although our fingers and brains have adapted to computers – we still read better in the paper. It’s no wonder so many people still prefer printed books (as opposed to electronic ones) – but that’s a topic for the next #oldtechonology blogpost. The issue is, you should never revise anything – above all, a novel – in a computer.

Always, always print your work and revise it with a pen in hand. Our brains react to the printed page differently, and we see our mistakes better.

Anyway, let’s stop and thank pen and paper for all the wonders it did and still do to us.

What about you, do you still use a pen and paper?