My first solo travel experience was to San Francisco in December. I knew I’d have lots of luggage to take: my mum encumbered me with tins of Heinz Baked Beans to deliver to my uncle, I packed three jackets (this was my bad), and I had Christmas gifts for my extended family who I would be staying with for the holidays. I didn’t want to add my laptop to a list of items I would have to haul to the airport and look after; what kind of liberated travel experience is that?! But, I also knew I’d have a long flight (11 hours!), with lots of potential time for writing. Max, 26’s editor, set me a challenge: take a notebook and see if, and how, your writing changes. Here is the result of that challenge.
Observation 1
A notebook offers more privacy, subtlety, and secrecy compared to a laptop. My neighbour can quite easily read the words on my laptop screen, but less easily if I’m writing in my notebook. I found myself writing more emotionally than I usually would with a potentially prying neighbour. But I still did not quite trust it: I found myself wanting to wrap my arm around my paper and lean over it to obscure it from view like some kids do during tests in school, protective over my pages.
Observation 2
A notebook offers more spontaneity. It’s less intrusive than a laptop in a public space, which perhaps goes hand in hand with the covertness noted my first observation. Though my notebook was not quite small enough to fit in any of my pockets, I was very easily able to carry it around in my bag. However, I often forgot to bring it out of that bag, opting instead to take photographs on my camera or phone to preserve a moment, and mostly only wrote in my notebook when I got home.
Observation 3
My notebook encouraged more forward motion and forced some fluidity. I quite frequently hit backspace when I am writing on my laptop, but I was more reluctant to redraft in my notebook. Doing so was messy and things quickly got illegible, and I wanted my notebook to stay new and fresh. I wrote a lot and I also wrote fast, almost tending towards stream of consciousness writing. I found myself thinking, ‘what if I finish this notebook while I’m here?’ and quickly reassured myself that I could always buy a new one. This was rather ambitious; I didn’t get through nearly as many pages as I feared I might.
Observation 4
I often treated my notebook like a diary. The only other time I frequently write with pen and paper is in my diary, so that pattern of thought came to me quite naturally when presented with that format. I started by writing fiction but quickly changed tack and used it to describe recent people, places, things, and feelings. On the plane, I was reading Samantha Harvey’s ‘Orbital’ while looping ‘Farewell Warning’ by Royel Otis (a song which I felt strongly complemented my reading experience), and I later watched ‘Fly Me to the Moon’; I wrote about feeling strongly connected to space while hurtling above the land in a metal capsule, not quite alone but surrounded by strangers.
Observation 5
The time of day matters. My laptop screen is bright and I could have quite comfortably written at any point in the plane journey had I brought it. Instead, as the plane lights dimmed, I made a half-dimmed phone torch contraption on the plane tray table, making sure only just enough light came through so I wouldn’t disturb others as I wrote in my notebook. I looked up at myself in the TV screen and I was ghostly, the light producing a faint reflection of myself. I wrote in the near-dark. I had a similar experience visiting Sausalito, a lovely city, sat by the water in the darkness, wanting to write in my notebook but finding it difficult to commit to the exercise. I instead jotted down a quick note on my phone.
Observation 6
I found myself sketching, revisiting scenes by drawing them, accompanying them with short words or phrases, another way of recalling a memory. This is something I never would have done on my laptop, and I loved looking back on my silly sketches.
Sitting by the water in Sausalito, looking out onto the midnight sky.
My notebook.
– Anushka Shah