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Comment by biztos | Hacker News Reader

Writing with pen (or pencil) on paper gives you "paged" real-time random access, plus the ability to illustrate at any resolution. The satisfying scratch of the roller ball on the paper tooth is also available in some hardware configurations.

I agree about the typewriter but there's a lot to be said for actual writing too.

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The issue I have with pen-and-paper writing is that I don't have the stamina to do it for long. It's quite a work out for your hand.

One thing that helped me with this was getting good quality pencils where I can use a minimal amount of pressure (a non-ballpoint pen also works). I also had to unlearn gripping the pencil hard and tensing my wrist. Good handwriting doesn't require tension: tension can occur because of misplaced effort at trying to write more nicely.

I relearned the motions of how to handwrite using Briem's handwriting repair curriculum: https://sites.google.com/view/briem/free-books/handwriting-r... Now I really enjoy writing by hand. Of course if I'm writing quickly the quality isn't as nice as when I can take more time.

There is a section on the site specifically about hand tension here: https://sites.google.com/view/briem/handwriting/writing-cram...

Good point. I admit that when I’m writing with pen and paper, it’s usually for things where brevity is desirable. More than a couple full pages at a time and it’s less fun.

If you haven't tried a fountain pen, do; they're the most comfortable writing implements I know, precisely because they need the least force to make a line. A good pen needs only the weight of the pen itself; you're not really pushing at all, just steering. That lets most of your hand and wrist muscles stay fairly relaxed, and keeps fatigue to a minimum.

If you do decide to try one, start with an inexpensive steel-nibbed model like a Pilot Metropolitan. Transitioning from pencils and ball pens involves some unlearning, as you adjust your hand posture and develop a feel for how little force is required. It takes a while, and depending on how hard a hand you have to start, a gold nib may not hold up.

We missed a trick when we stopped teaching kids to write with fountain pens, but the lack is easily remedied in later life with a bit of interest and diligence. Fair warning, though: you may find them so comfortable to use for long periods that you develop a writer's bump like mine!

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