Speed of thought and mode of communication

I recently came across this wonderful blogpost by author Neal Stephenson (easily my most favourite fiction author) where he talks about why he prefers to write his novels in longhand, fountain pen on paper.

In that, he writes:

I’m not an expert on how the brain works, but I can say that, when writing by hand, one is continually solving a series of small problems having to do with the spacing of words, how letters are connected, the crossing of the letter t (sometimes more than one in the same word) and the dotting of the letters i and j, and how to accomplish all of those things through coordinated movements not just of the fingers but of the whole arm. All of that has to be integrated in real time with whatever is happening on a more abstract level in the brain’s processing of ideas and imagery.

(emphasis mine)

The key idea here is that writing is thinking. That when you are writing, you are “continually solving a series of small problems”.

Typically, when you start writing, whether it’s a book or an essay or a paper or a blogpost (this doesn’t apply to extreme short form writing like text messages or tweets), you don’t have the full idea fully formed in your head. What you have is a hook, and you start writing with that.

And as you write, you think, and form further thoughts, and put it down (on your chosen medium). This way, the piece takes shape.

The important thing here is that the pace at which you are able to convey your thoughts (either in speech or any form of writing) needs to match the pace at which fresh thoughts might be generated. And this can vary significantly based on who you are, what you are writing, and how you think about what you are writing.

In my case, for example, there is absolutely no surprise that my writing took off significantly in 2004, when I got a computer of my own for the first time in my life (not shared with my father, or some departmental lab). I already knew touch typing, and I figured that the speed at which I could type on the computer sort of approximately matched the speed at which I would generate writing thoughts. That made writing easy, and I started writing much more.

In Stephenson’s case, he writes novels, most of which (based on what I’ve read) are rather complex with many threads going on simultaneously, and the scene shifting between various stories. In that kind of a case, almost every paragraph needs considerable thought. If he were to type it out, it is possible that he would have to pause after every paragraph to generate and process fresh thoughts - typing is faster than writing by hand for most people - and that might have broken his flow (I’m only speculating).

With ink on paper, though, there is likely more synergy between the speed of idea generation and idea propagation. So he is able to get into a better flow with writing.

My writing is nowhere as complex. I mostly write short essays (even when I wrote my book, I divided up each chapter into multiple sections, each of which I intended to be around 1000 words long; so the manuscript was written as a set of essays before i cleaned it up). Most essays have one or two topics. And so ideas come thick and fast.

I remember in 2008 when I had promised a magazine an article, and since I was in the middle of moving cities, I didn’t have a computer at hand. So I decided to write that with pen on paper, and struggled so badly I elected to not send it at all. Writing was painfully slow for me, and the speed of idea generation far outstripped the speed of idea communication. So there was a traffic jam in my head and that made it impossible to write.

This is related to how, as a child, I had a pronounced stammer. And then one day in high school, some teachers pointed out that this was possibly because “I thought too quickly compared to my speech” and so my head and mouth would be in different places while I was speaking, leading to the stammer. The same “traffic jam in my head” problem. Once this had been pointed out, I started being more conscious, and soon the stammer was a thing of history.

On a related note, a few months ago I started using voice typing tools such as Wispr Flow but have since completely given up on them - voice typing is way too fast for me and I don’t seem to be able to generate fresh thoughts at all when I’m communicating in that manner. Also, there was some kind of a conflict - voice typing involves more thinking than touch typing for me, and that thinking means that much less bandwidth to think about what I’m actually writing about. And so the thinking part of writing completely disappeared.

So - your mileage and speed will definitely vary. Depending upon what you’re writing and how much fresh thought that involves and how quickly you can communicate using different media, you are likely to have an ideal medium of choice. And for me, that is on a computer.

PS: Recently my son was fiddling around with my MacBook and ended up doing something to my spacebar. I normally use my left thumb to hit the spacebar but the left edge of the macbook space bar doesn’t work at all now, and so I need to be more conscious while typing on that. So I try to use my external keyboard as much as possible nowadays (I’m using that now to write this).

PS2: The same principle discussed in this blogpost applies to the writing of the Mahabharata - Vyasa needed a scribe who was quick enough to match his (Vyasa’s) speed of thought and oral communication, and that’s how he found Ganesha. Funnily enough, while writing this post, I realised I’ve written another post titled “Neal Stephenson and Ganesha”. Here it is, for your enjoyment:

Neal Stephenson and Ganesha

·

April 18, 2024

This morning, completely unprompted, my wife sent me this essay by Neal Stephenson on why he is a “bad correspondent”. In this, he details out why he doesn’t respond to emails or speaking invitations, and instead spends as much of his time possible writing novels.