Writing by Hand is Good for Your Brain

Neil Stephenson is known for handwriting his entire novels using a fountain pen and paper. This seems pretty ridiculous to me, but he’s got twenty novels to his name and a bunch of short fiction and articles, so what do I know?

He recently posted on his Substack advocating that writing by hand is good for the brain. Apparently, there’s some decent research on the subject. As someone who does a lot of writing by hand, Stephenson outlined a few dos and don’ts for people who want to reap the benefits.

A couple of them resonated with me:

Don’t use a pencil (or a cheap ballpoint) Absolutely not. My preferred writing instrument is a Sakura Pigma Micron 05. I have several in a variety of colors. Since I’ve moved on from planning in digital to paper, these pens have been invaluable to me.

Stick to a pen/paper combination that works For me, the combination that has worked is the above pen in several colors for color coding and a Baron Fig notebook. There are other notebooks that are cheaper and ones significantly more expensive, but the Baron Fig Confidant is the perfect size with a great cloth cover.

Don’t get hung up on legibility My handwriting is not great. I’m left-handed, which may be a factor, but overall it hasn’t really been a problem for me reading my own handwriting. Since the notebook planner I’m using isn’t for anyone else, I don’t try to make it perfect.