because she writes

Page Fright: Writers do it everywhere

I’m left-handed and writing with a pen almost always ends up being a messy affair. In the West, we write left to right, making my left hand drag the ink along and smudge the page. Even with a pencil, my hand tends to cramp as a left-handed person must write inward across the page. I’ve often envied right-handed people who can gracefully write outward across the page like a violinist with his bow extended to caress the sweet high and low notes.

The computer is an equal-opportunity instrument, though I imagine if I researched the origins of the QWERTY keyboard, I’d find it was designed not only for the slowness of mechanical typewriters, but also for the prominent right-handed population. Even though I prefer writing my first draft in longhand, I often start on the computer.

That’s the kind of mundane detail Harry Bruce describes in Page Fright: Foibles and Fetishes of Famous Writers. Bruce chronicles writers’ habits from the era of quill pens, fountain pens, long-hand writing with pencils or pen, to modern-day writers who use the typewriter or computer.

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