Why I Still Write EVERYTHING By Hand

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed one thing.

I don’t write on a computer.

Every once in a while, someone sees the stack of notebooks on my desk (or in my car… or on my nightstand… or stuffed into whatever bag I’m carrying that day) and asks, “Wait… are those your books?”

Yep.

Every single one of them.

Every novel I’ve ever written started as a blank notebook. Every chapter. Every blog post. Every random idea that popped into my head while I was sitting at a wrestling show, volunteering at the theater, or waiting in a school pickup line.

It all starts with pen and paper.

Now, eventually, everything gets typed. It has to. Nobody wants to publish my handwriting. But before a book ever exists as a Word document, it’s already lived an entire life inside one—or usually several—notebooks.

And when I say several…

I mean several.

I recently filled three notebooks writing Heir of the Forgotten.

Three.

That feels completely normal to me.

Apparently, it does not feel normal to everyone else.

The funny thing is, I never really chose this process.

I just… never stopped.

I started writing as a kid. Back then, laptops weren’t exactly lying around the house. Hell, I didn’t even have a computer until I was in high school, and when we finally got one, it took about ten years to load anything. Writing in a notebook wasn’t some artistic choice. It was just what I had.

Somewhere between then and now, it became part of me.

People always tell me writing on a computer would be faster. They’re probably right. But faster doesn’t always mean better.

There’s something about opening a brand-new notebook that just makes my brain wake up. That first blank page doesn’t intimidate me. It excites me. It’s sitting there waiting to become somebody’s favorite character. Somebody’s favorite chapter. Somebody’s ugly cry at two o’clock in the morning because I made them emotionally attached to fictional people.

A computer screen doesn’t do that.

A blinking cursor just sits there like…

“Well? Are you going to write something or not?”

It’s rude.

The notebook never judges me. It just waits.

Another reason I stick with notebooks?

They’re quiet.

When I’m writing in a notebook, I’m writing. I’m not answering emails. I’m not checking Facebook. I’m definitely not telling myself I’m “just going to look up one thing” before somehow ending up forty-five minutes later watching videos about medieval weapons, crocheting, wrestling entrances, or whatever random rabbit hole the internet decided I needed that day.

With a notebook, there aren’t any rabbit holes.

There’s just the story.

Now… I will admit something.

I still get distracted. Sometimes I’ll flip back and reread earlier chapters instead of writing the next one. Suddenly I’m laughing at dialogue I forgot I’d written or crying because apparently my own books still hurt my feelings. Occupational hazard, I guess.

I also think people underestimate how much I genuinely enjoy the physical act of writing. I have entirely too many pens. I’m not even going to pretend otherwise. There are probably fifty floating around in my purse right now, all different colors. Do I need that many? Absolutely not. Will I buy more? Also yes.

Sometimes I’ll switch pen colors halfway through a chapter for absolutely no reason other than I felt like using purple instead of teal. Every single writing session is a different color, and that’s how I track how much I got home. Not a word count.

Does it matter? Not even a little. Do I care? Also no.

Then there’s something I never imagined I’d be talking about when I started writing over twenty years ago.

Artificial intelligence.

It feels like AI is everywhere now. People argue about it constantly, and honestly, everyone has their own opinion.

Mine?

I like knowing I can pull a notebook off my shelf and show someone exactly where my stories came from. The crossed-out sentences. The arrows pointing everywhere because I changed my mind halfway through. The notes in the margins. The pages where I scribbled, “FIX THIS LATER.” The chapter that starts on one page and somehow ends three pages earlier because I taped in an extra sheet.

It’s messy. It’s imperfect. It’s real.

Nobody can look at one of my notebooks and question whether I wrote my books. Because they’re right there. Every mistake. Every rewrite. Every moment where I got stuck. Every breakthrough.

I think that’s why I have such a hard time throwing old notebooks away.

They’re more than paper. They’re memories.

I can pick one up and immediately remember where I was when I wrote a certain chapter. I remember if I was listening to Fall Out Boy or Citizen Soldier or Jared Benjamin. I remember if I was writing backstage at the theater, sitting in the car waiting for one of my kids, or hiding in my office because the characters wouldn’t leave me alone until I finished the scene.

Those notebooks tell the story behind the story.

Could I write entirely on a computer? Sure.

Will I ever? Not a chance.

Because every published book on my shelf started exactly the same way.

With a blank notebook.

A colorful pen.

And me wondering…

“Okay… what kind of trouble are these characters going to get me into this time?”