There are some things that I love about handwriting stories and papers. For one, there's less pressure. You can pretty much guarantee that anything that you write by hand will have to be typed up before you show it to someone else. Also, seeing your writing in neat little book-print can trick you. You think that you're reading a professional thing, and so you start to compare what you've written to the other things that you've seen. You need to have what you write be perfect and beautiful, and so you write nothing.

I used to hate handwriting my stuff because it meant that I would have to keep rewriting it. But now I think that that is one of the glories of handwriting. You have to write the same scene, the same paragraphs, over and over again, and in doing so you get to experiment, to see what works and what doesn't. You don't have to fit your new piece into what you've already written--often, you don't even have the other versions on you. There's a drive, for me at least, to make every ounce original and fresh each time. Eventually you combine what works best. I've written a scene for one of my stories five or six times, and I'm still not sure which one I like best. It's a scene where one character, a sort-of love interest, interrupts the MC's suicide attempt. In one version I gave the character bright blue eyes. In another, he's missing an eye. Sometimes I handle description and physical sensation well, and sometimes I focus more on my dialogue. In one version I focus on the MC's self-destructiveness. By focusing on these different aspects each time, instead of trying to tackle it all at once, I can slowly build a very effective piece. It takes time, but it breaks the daunting process down into little, manageable, enjoyable chunks.