Heroic pen-pushers

Graham 'Bookman' Beattie comments on the post below this one on the quaint way writer Roger Morris appears to be writing a novel by hand. He wonders if there are many other writers who do this now.

Scroll down and take a look at the link - it's a little home-made movie of Morris scribbling in a notebook (remember those?) with an unbudgeable cat on his shoulders. Commenting on Morris' blog, kiwi author Rachael King asks fascinated: 'Do you write longhand first, or are those just notes? Or are you just pretending to write for the camera?'

Morris hasn't replied yet so we are none the wiser. It doesn't look like a trick. He seems quite relaxed about the method of writing but perplexed by the cat.

Responding to Bookman Beattie in the comments, I threw Michael Ondaatje's name into the ring as a pen-pushing author. I also mentioned Richard Ford but said I didn't know for sure. Anyway, a quick google clears it up. A fine article by The Guardian's Phil Hogan in 2006 describes Ford at home, including his writing den. Here's a snippet:

'..... Ford emerges cheerfully from the house in shorts, a plaid shirt, Converse All Star basketball boots ('I love these,' he says. 'I have two pairs') and what look like hand-knitted socks in purple and green. A bird takes off from somewhere high in the pine wood that borders the path. 'That's an osprey,' he says as it flaps out to sea.

We wander down to the boat shed, which is kitted out with a desk, an old armchair, a bed, a kettle, a bookshelf, oars, ropes, buoys, a barrel and a wood-burning stove for the winter months. There's a big wall map, too, of the New Jersey suburbs, where the Frank Bascombe books are set. This is where Ford writes, by hand, on unlined sheets of A4, transferring it, when he can be bothered, to a computer. He shows me the melted table top where during the Herculean editing processes of the past months an upended halogen lamp scorched its way through 350 pages of draft typescript, though miraculously his proof marks in the margin were intact. 'I felt I'd dodged a bullet there,' he says.'

To read the rest go here.

Are there any others out there? I've certainly tried penning it from time to time - and like the way the words flow with less self-editing - but oh I do love a computer.