Media Shifting
I know why I haven't written by hand over the years: I hate the process of transcribing from paper to screen.
Many writers talk of how they will unload their thoughts at the start of the day, clear out the mental detritus so that the mind is free from distraction when they come to write.
But this is like my actual creative process.
I don't write in notes or bullet points, I don't create in abstractions. I write - and think - in full sentences, paragraphs.
If I have a thought or an idea it simply has to come out, it has to make the transition from mind to medium before the moment is lost and the idea decays.
The phrasing of the ideas, the emotion behind them, is of the moment, tied to my mental state at that exact point in time. No matter what the subject, no matter how well conceived, if it is not captured in that specific moment then it might as well have never existed.
So, writing down these sentences and paragraphs while they are fresh in the mind should be a good thing, right?
It should, but once they are written they are done, loosed upon the world - they are free and I no longer control them.
Irrespective of the medium used, like the morning detritus they have been removed from my mind, transferred to an outboard memory with no reliable means of retrieval.
I am unable to "media shift" my ideas.
