The bolpen philosophy: How drawing with ballpoint pen improved my writing

I like writing. I consider myself pretty good at it. But for me (and maybe for you too), the process of writing—and becoming a better writer—can be a nightmare. A perfectionist’s nightmare. I can’t help but pause, agonizing over phrasing, word choice, punctuation. Tiny fixes become huge hurdles, bringing my essays, articles and blog posts to an inevitable stall.

Or even a full stop.

Unfortunately, mistakes and improvement are intertwined, for better or for worse. Making mistakes is necessary to improve, but too much nitpicking leads to stagnation. It’s especially annoying if you’re a copy editor and writer like myself; I’m constantly paralyzed by the idea of writing a sentence that’s anything less than perfect. However, I’ve been fortunate enough to learn to deal with this dilemma—but through my studies as an illustrator, not as a copy editor or writer. As I grow in experience, these lessons have become more and more applicable to different facets of my life.

What did drawing in ballpoint pen teach me about learning?

These are my own ballpoint pen urban landscape sketches: attempts 4, 5 and 11 (left to right). Check out the development in my shading, line work and sense of perspective!

It’s said that drawing in ballpoint pen helps artists improve their skills—and quickly. The premise is that the inability to erase mistakes forces them to be extra mindful of how they make marks on a page. Eager to try it out, I filled up my sketchbook with ink drawings, scribbling dozens of figure studies and line exercises until there wasn’t a blank page to be seen.

Unsurprisingly, drawing in ballpoint pen did improve my skills. It forced me to practice intentionality in my drawing, to think before making a mark, making my lines less wispy and more confident. It also helped me to develop other basic drawing skills: I learned to measure proportions, observe light and shadow, pay attention to shapes and focus on negative space.

However (and this is the surprising part), it’s not that drawing in pen helped me avoid mistakes. In fact, I did make mistakes, and plenty of them. I noticed that I draw eyes too high on the face, and adjusted my guidelines to sit below the centre of the head. I also noticed that I drew hands too big and cumbersome, and started to sketch hands that were leaner and well-defined. I needed to make those mistakes to improve—mistakes that I wouldn’t have noticed if I was able to erase them. I needed to see my failures on the page so I could make specific, tangible strategies for improvement. Thus, making, acknowledging and understanding mistakes was integral to the process of learning.

So how does this relate to writing?

Like I said, my fatal flaw as a writer is that I’m a perfectionist. Starting a project, crafting a paragraph or writing a sentence can feel like climbing a mountain: I’m looking at the peak, and there’s a harrowing incline I need to scale to get there. I want to reach the summit in a single step, but achieving perfection on the first try is an impossible task.

Recall what I learned from drawing in ballpoint pen: that the road to improvement is filled with many mistakes, and that that’s okay. In writing, accepting that those mistakes are inevitable has vastly improved the speed and quality of my work. I write my first draft loosely, typing my thoughts freely. I avoid backspacing when possible, preventing myself from slowing down to make corrections. I maintain intentionality with the help of an outline, and I ignore the urge to nitpick. Not only does this decrease my stress, but this allows me to finish first drafts quickly, giving me more time to hone and perfect my work. Evidently, the confidence and intentionality I gained from drawing in ballpoint pen has been a huge help in bettering my writing workflow.

For those of you able to get your work edited …

Proof that my writing is rarely perfect.

It’s easier to accept an editor’s changes than dwell on your writing mistakes. Though seeing your work riddled with strikethroughs and corrections is disheartening, remember that moving on from mistakes is not the same as learning from them. Drawing in pen made my mistakes permanent—I had to look at them, to commit my mistakes to mind, to form measurable goals for my next sketches. Similarly, acknowledging my flowery writing made me to focus on word count, honing my ability to write concisely. Becoming aware of my inconsistencies (e.g., in capitalization) has helped me to look out for specific mistakes when I proofread my own work. Becoming responsive to constructive criticism and feedback (even self-criticism) has been integral to my growth, both as an illustrator and a writer.

To wrap it up . . .

Make mistakes! They are completely necessary for improving your skills in drawing, writing and everything else. Don’t conflate moving on from a mistake with learning from one; you need to know them inside and out to facilitate real growth. Acknowledge, understand and analyze your mistakes so you can make tangible goals and do better next time.

I wish you good luck on your learning journey! May your mistakes be vastly outnumbered by your future improvements.