Writing Tips: The Moleskine Method, Part 2

In the previous entry, I introduced the Moleskine, describing its features and plugging it to writers who are on the go or need help with organization. In this entry I explain why I think writers should get comfortable with writing in longhand—a skill that’s required if you’re to make use of what I will now call “The Moleskine method.”

In the digital age, writing in longhand is a lost art. Right up through college I wrote mostly in longhand and payed a fellow student (invariably a girl who interested me) to type for me. It never seemed inconvenient to me, certainly not in comparison with typing. (And, as I hinted without much subtlety, it had a social benefit.) Even after I received a Brother electronic typewriter for Christmas, I wrote drafts in longhand before typing them myself (or loaning my typewriter to “hired help.”)

The Mac SE

It wasn’t until I was preparing my Ph.D. dissertation that I had a personal computer—the vaunted Mac SE. Easy access to this technology gradually weaned me from my habit of longhand writing. And I noticed a difference in my writing experience. It wasn’t as fluid; it was mechanical. It wasn’t as graceful; it was clunky. It wasn’t as personal; it was manufactured. My plight wasn’t simply a matter of adapting to the digital world (for example, learning to trust that what was no longer on the screen was still “there”).

I’ve never overcome the sense that what I actually put on the page while writing would be different if instead I had composed with a word processor. Not only the words, but the concepts and thoughts would vary. And they would suffer when relying on a word processor in a way they would not in longhand. Other writers testify to the same thing. And some won’t go near a keyboard.

Whatever the creative advantages of writing by hand, there is the unequivocal benefit of convenience under very common conditions. Neither my laptop nor my iPhone serve on all occasions—or even most occasions. Because of our obsession with technological “advances,” we expect our writing needs to be simplified by turning to these devices. But then complications arise. “I’m here and my laptop is somewhere else. I guess I can’t write.” “I can’t see all my pages at once, and rearrange them by sight. I guess I’ll have to print a hard copy . . . again.” “Whose document is this? Did I write it? I can’t tell; everybody uses the same font.” And so on. Paper is (thanks to the computer!) ubiquitous. The living room floor, or the bedroom wall, is expansive enough to place drafts side-by-side and to reorganize sections within view of each other. And my handwriting is unique and uniquely recognizable by me (and possibly only legible for me).

OK—some of these are at best unconscious concerns.

Still, there’s no denying the advantage of paper when your computer is tucked away (in your bag or in another state), or takes too long to boot up for you to remember what you were thinking, or doesn’t serve for bedside writing in the middle of the night (a time of particularly fruitful thinking for writers). Unfortunately, resorting to paper is generally regarded as the “next best thing,” and way down on the scale of utility when compared with the computer. I maintain that actual “writing” is the best thing, perhaps most of the time.

Unless you don’t know how.

Knowing how has two aspects. First, there’s being able to get things from mind to paper, a different process than word processing. Second, there’s having a technique for exploiting the full advantages of the “writing” habit. Part 3 in this series will introduce a few guidelines for using “The Moleskine Method.”

Previously in this series:

Writing Tips: The Moleskine Method, Part 1

Part 3 in this series will be posted soon.

The Stimulus of Teaching

Why did Karl Barth’s productivity as a writing scholar diminish following his retirement from teaching? Some say it’s because the pressure to produce had run out [see here].

What T. H. L. Parker wrote is that Barth “lost the stimulus provided by the need to give lectures.” The key word here is “stimulus,” not “pressure.” Teaching is the ideal stimulus for scholars who write, especially if they teach graduate courses to gifted students. The stimulus of teaching can be likened to the frequent re-lighting of tobacco in a well-used pipe.

Who Is the Commander in Chief?

So it’s official . . . kind of. Major Hasan is a zealot for “radical Islam,” and people knew it. Doesn’t give you too much faith in the system, does it?

In an earlier post about the Fort Hood incident, I suggested that the question is: How could this happen? Though I suspected it then, it’s obvious now that part of the answer is our faith in political correctness. Yes, PC is an abstract concept, not a person. So having faith in it sounds preposterous. So what I should say is that because of the insidious influence of PC, we have faith in people we never should trust. PC blinds us to the importance of knowing whom we trust.

I did not knowingly trust Maj. Hasan. But I surely did indirectly. More important, the people he gunned down trusted him. That trust has always seemed warranted and invulnerable to suspicion. Not any more.

It isn’t only Maj. Hasan who betrayed our trust. Others in the military knew of his goofiness (a euphemism, considering the consequences of their oversight and inaction). And yet he had freedom to roam the base, work with patients, and walk into a facility and shoot indiscriminately and fatally at innocent “infidels.”

How can we not wonder how compromised our military has become? Is Hasan the tip of an iceberg? How far up the chain of command does his ideology find a home?

It’s lunacy for Americans to prefer abstract and amorphous “change” over substance. This is partly because change is never really amorphous or abstract when it occurs. It’s always concrete, definite. Since it is so definite when it happens, we must be sure we know what sort of change we’re asking for when politicians promise it.

We didn’t know what change was in mind when Obama was a presidential candidate. He made sure of that. And the electorate didn’t care. But why did Obama make sure that no one knew his definite plans? And what are we to make of the radicalism of so many changes he’s already proposed in his first year as president? Do we yet know who this guy really is?

This was a question for the days of campaigning. But it’s pertinent again today. For Obama is our Commander in Chief, the highest ranking member of the American military infrastructure.

I suggest that if our confidence in the military infrastructure is to be restored, we must have unequivocal repudiation of radical Islamic ideology from the top down. It won’t be enough to hear this in the abstract. What is really needed is explicit condemnation of sharia law, followed up with vigorous efforts to track down, expose, and prosecute enemies in the camp.

What are the chances that’s going to happen?

Writing Tips: The Moleskine Method, Part 1

I always have an unwieldy number of writing projects doubtfully spinning into existence at the same time. One tool that has proven its value is the Moleskine.

The Moleskine is a thin booklet (called a cahier) of blank pages bound together with professional stitching and a sturdy but flexible cover. It comes it various sizes and several colors (charcoal black, a déclassé brown called “kraft,” a Mediterranean blue, and red). I favor the black. The inside back cover has a pocket that holds the stray item. The pages are formatted to taste. For writing purposes, I prefer the Moleskine with ruled pages. The ideal size is 18 ½ x 25 centimeters (7 1/4 x 9 13/16 inches). Pages are a creamy light yellow-green color. While this may not sound suitable, it actually is. This shade is easy on the eyes, even in bright sunlight. Pages are also acid-free. Especially convenient is the spacing and color of the the horizontal lines. The top margin is 2 centimeters, and the rest of the lines are about ½ centimeter apart. There’s a bottom margin of 1 centimeter. The lines themselves are faintly drawn in a shade that complements the pages and the cover.

There are 30 thin sheets to provide 120 pages of writing space when folded tightly and stitched securely. The thickness of the whole is less than half a centimeter. (A typical book of 300 pages, measuring 5 ½ x 8 ½ inches, is about four times this thickness [i.e., 2 centimeters]). So the Moleskine is compact. Though thin, the pages hold up well. A faint imprint of the word “Moleskine” appears at the bottom on the back side. Otherwise, there are no markings. Makers of the trademark Moleskine are rightly confident that it will be recognized as a Moleskine without the usual graffiti imposed on other consumer goods.

The particular Moleskine I’ve described has the ideal dimensions for the busy and mobile writer. It travels lightly and compactly, and does not suffer injury easily. The ones I buy are packaged three together. I estimate that I fill one about every three months (or one per quarter).

While I use this Moleskine primarily for writing related to works in progress and for writing ideas, I don’t hesitate to make other kinds of notes, as well. This includes project ideas and lists, wish lists (usually book titles), lecture notes, diagrams, quotations—whatever. You might say that the Moleskine works for me as a kind of chapbook. I have even prepared notes for sundry lectures and public presentations, which I then use during my presentation. Very handy.

Using the Moleskine for Rough Drafts

It’s easy to think that the rough draft of something I’m writing has to be prepared at my desk, at a pre-established time, with a singular writing focus, and without distractions. But this is the real world. I need a way to get things done, to exploit the odd moment, and to capture the serendipitous thought or thought stream. Voilá! The Moleskine.

Note 1: cahier is French for “exercise book” or “notebook.” See a good dictionary for pronunciation.

Note 2: For value, I suggest purchasing the Moleskine from Amazon. I’ve linked here to the version of Moleskine I use for writing.

Next in this series:

Writing Tips: The Moleskine Method, Part 2

What Made Him Do It?

Yesterday, United States Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan shot and killed 12 people and wounded 31 others at the Fort Hood Army base. He survived four shots and is now hospitalized.

Wild speculation began immediately. Fueling speculation are reports that Maj. Hasan is a Muslim and had made various statements reflecting opposition to U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. One interviewee even claimed that the major had said that Muslims should not be fighting Muslims.

Maj. Hasan is an Army psychiatrist who was about to be deployed to Afghanistan. There are reports that he was agitated about this.

The investigation into this horrific crime will be complicated. But today, one question has been pressed repeatedly in various media interviews and reports: “What caused Maj. Hasan to do this?”

The question is ludicrous. It presumes that his action was “caused,” as if it was some set of circumstances that ineluctably made him do it. But why think that?

Notice, I’m not asking, What makes anyone think that? That would be to commit the same mistake. I’m asking what reasons anyone would have for thinking that. Here are two possibilities.

First possibility. One might assume that nothing this horrific could be pre-meditated and morally culpable, but must be due to some psychological disorder or malfunction. “Nobody in his right mind would do such a thing.” That is, anyone who would do such a thing must be “out of his mind.” Such a one is more to be pitied than blamed. The tragedy extends not only to the victims and their families, but to the shooter himself who could not help himself, who was in some way driven to this behavior.

Second possibility. One might be concerned that Hasan’s action could have been motivated by a Jihadist ideology, and that this is socially and politically awkward. If Hasan was acting in full possession of his mental faculties, in premeditated fashion, under the inspiration of a Jihadist ideology, that spells real trouble on two levels.

First, it means that greater vigilance is needed at home to ensure that we have a trustworthy fighting force waging war with Jihadism overseas. Those who volunteer for service need to know that the men and women serving alongside them are on the same side. Americans need confidence that every means of terrorist insurgency in the United States is realistically assessed.

Second, any hint that terrorist strategists have infiltrated our military infrastructure could have serious social repercussions. I’ll leave it to readers to contemplate what those repercussions may be. But one way to begin would be to ask, what am I to think and how am I to go about my business, if even our home military bases are this vulnerable?

Looking for the “causes” of the man’s behavior is ridiculous. The most intelligent assumption, at the outset of investigation into this event, is that he made a calculated decision to perpetrate this crime. His motive needs to be investigated. Motive refers, not to causes, but to reasons. So, what did Hasan believe? What ideas and beliefs could he have had, consistent with all evidence, that could make sense to him of taking this kind of action?

The alternative is to suppose that no one acts with such horrific consequences in a morally accountable way. If that’s true, then what are we doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why, for that matter, is anyone ever locked up for an egregious crime? Everything is to be causally explained.

Let’s suppose that we could somehow persuade ourselves that human action is causally determined and that we must be sympathetic with agents who do such horrible things. We might still wish to contain the scope of their action and influence, to prevent opportunities for them to engage in such behavior—if only to spare the lives of innocents. On the assumption that behavior is caused, prevention would depend upon somehow mitigating the causes. Fine. But why shouldn’t ideology then be regarded as causal in its effect? Embracing a pernicious ideology may itself, on the assumption, be the effect of various psycho and social causes. If all commitment to Jihadist ideology is causally induced, which in turn leads causally to terrorist acts, then we still have an interest in isolating the ideological component in a person’s behavior, however “causal” the role of ideology may be. And once isolating that component, we should develop means to screen for its presence among individuals who have opportunity to act perniciously under its inducement.

Whatever role ideology did or did not actually play in Maj. Hasan’s action, I believe that we have to presume that his action is morally reprehensible and not just psychically tragic. And if ideology was a “factor,” then even a causal account of Hasan’s behavior must face that fact.

On September 11, 2001, Americans were stunned by the success of terrorist plotting that was years in the making and staging. On November 5, 2009, Americans were stunned by news of a massacre at Ford Hood. Are the events connected? At this point, who can say? But surely it is not paranoia to consider the possibility. Many of our leaders seem to be in denial. They carry on business as if terrorist reprisals are a thing of the past, or at worst effectively restricted to remote locations.

We need to understand the nature and power of ideology. Terrorists, for example, are pragmatists. They seek realistic means of achieving their goals. We do not accept their ideology; thus, we fail to understand their actions. We don’t understand their objectives; we simply can’t relate to them. And so we make all kinds of mistakes in judgment about their motives and methods. As pragmatists, however, Jihadists are creative and patient. Are they beyond  exploiting the freedoms of all Americans to live in relative obscurity, infiltrate whatever strategic centers of activity exist in our land, and pull the trigger at that moment when it best serves their purposes? Don’t kid yourself.

What made Maj. Hasan pull the trigger yesterday? That’s the wrong question. Better to ask: How could this have happened? There is an answer to this question. We may not like what we find out. But if all we consider is what makes a terrorist do what he does, we may not see the next one in our midst. I don’t know if Maj. Hasan is a Jihadist. I do believe he’s morally responsible for his action. And I fear the consequences if we refuse to investigate the possibility that Hasan, whether acting alone or not, was acting on behalf of an ideology.