Die Hand v. Le Clavier

Die Hand is "the hand" in German, and Le Clavier is "the keyboard" in French.

Both of these items are important for any writer.  Before word processing and typewriters, there was the hand to write with and the pen, pencil, quill, odd piece of charcoal that was the instrument.  I often wonder how long it would take for an author pre-21st century to write a book. 

I came upon this article on Word Count that details a skeletal estimation of word counts for different novels and books, dependent on genre.  With Archer of the Lake, I believe it's safe to assume that it falls under a young adult fantasy.  My current word count that I've typed out is around 55,000, but I believe I've completed around 60,000 words written.

And, upon realization the other day, therein lies the issue with my slow progress.  I follow other writers and their blogs and their blogging on writing and such.  It has become suddenly and painfully obvious that how other writers seem to make faster progress with their writing and manuscripts is perhaps they sit at a computer and write by typing.  It's not a method that I can fault at all.  Typing is fater than writing words by hand, especially since my last clocked typing time was around 89 wpm (words per minute).

My normal practice of writing is during the day--be it lunch break, class break, homework break, is to write what I can or am able to in my notebook.  Side note--my preferred writing notebook is a composition notebook.  I've already filled up two composition notebooks with Archer of the Lake alone, and I'm halfway through my third notebook (which features a shot of Katniss, Hunger Games plug!)  Later, I will slowly do the grueling work of transcribing all the pages from my notebook into the computer file I have.  In retrospect, this seems like a rather inefficient method of writing.  Valuable time that could be spent on creating new on content on the manuscript is wasted on squinting at my awful handwriting and trying to decipher what I was trying to say in my hasty scrawl in order to transcribe it for digital copy.

I realized that, logically, if I want want to make better progress on this I should devote all writing to the computer.  However, my writing is done in sporadic bursts--five minutes here or thirty minutes there.  And I absolutely hate, hate writing out of order.  Say if I stopped my current progress and continued it on the computer.  I can't pick it up later, if I'm not at my computer or have my USB in hand, from my notebook because there's a large gap of story that's missing that could prove vital to continue.

Bu I must get over this if I want to at least attempt making better progress.  Here is a Typing Speed Test if you would like to try your own wpm rate.  I just took it and my speed went down by three--I'm currently at 85 wpm, which is still not bad.