Neal Stephenson: “Because I am known to write using a fountain pen on paper, a number of people have pointed me to this post and its underlying research. I won’t rehash what is said in those sources, but the gist of it is that when you write things down by hand you’re recruiting more of your brain, which is a good thing. 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. Concurrently I have been following discourse on Reddit and other sources about how widespread use of AI has forced educators to return to the long-abandoned practice of having their students take exams in person by writing things out longhand in blue books. This has created new challenges for students who never really learned how to write by hand, and for teachers who can’t make sense of their students’ terrible handwriting. About twenty-five years ago I stopped composing at the keyboard and switched over to fountain pen on paper. Since then I have written many thousands of pages that way. The manuscript of The Baroque Cycle was a stack of handwritten pages 42 inches high, which for a time was on display at the Museum of Science Fiction in Seattle. With the exception of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., which I co-wrote with Nicole Galland by emailing Word files back and forth, every book I’ve written since then has been composed with fountain pen on paper. Every so often, when I’m signing books at a book tour appearance, someone will come up to me and say something like “you must have writer’s cramp!” or “is your hand sore yet?” I never have the time to provide a full answer. If I did, however, my answer would be that never, at any time during a quarter of a century during which I have spent a substantial fraction of each working day writing by hand, have I experienced even the faintest traces of so-called “writer’s cramp” or any other such hobgoblins. Yet I can remember getting a sore hand when I was a kid writing out assignments in school. Many people probably remember such experiences and assume, reasonably enough, that it’s a natural consequence of writing by hand for any length of time. This is not the case. Here are some fairly simple dos and don’ts for people who want to reap the benefits of writing by hand…” [I have always kept a pen and steno notebooks next to me while I work and fill them up by month – including dates. They are excellent resources for spur of the moment thoughts, recollections, to do lists, poetry, prayers, phone numbers, books and articles I want to read…”

and just because writing by hand and reading books daily go so well together: Pressed for time? 20 brilliant books you can read in a day. From novels by James Baldwin and Han Kang to a guide to quantum physics – a former Booker prize judge recommends immersive one-sitting wonders..”