There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
I am guessing that the last time that I used a typewriter to write a paper was sometime in the 1980s. I would write a draft in long hand. Then, I would painstakingly hunt and peck until I had a typewritten paper. I took my time, but I would end up making a mistake. Typewriters are unforgiving on mistakes. Once typed, it can't be untyped. There is white out and the correction ribbon, but the scars remain. You messed up, and perfection is lost. Needless to say, I was not a fan of typing.
Eventually, I got a computer. It was one of those desktop models you got from RadioShack. That changed my writing life. For the first time, I could type up a paper and experience forgiveness for my mistakes. It was so liberating that I gave up writing in longhand and went straight to the keyboard. Things were fine until I encountered instant damnation. Whenever we lost power, all of my work would be lost. That old computer didn't have auto save. That's when the old typewriter would have a laugh at me. The typewriter saves everything automatically. The manual typewriter doesn't even need electricity to work.
I have used electric typewriters before, but I really hate those things. If I went back to typing, I would use a manual machine. My preference would be a Smith-Corona. That was the typewriter I used at the beginning. My aunt gifted it to me when she switched to the electric typewriter. I miss that minty green contraption. If I had been smart, I would have kept it.
Today, I use a computer to write these blog posts. I write straight into the blogger software. There is no first draft or final draft. My work is automatically saved. I am constantly reading and revising the posts even after I have published them. I am always catching typos and adding updates. Those mistakes have increased dramatically since the accident and my TBI. I lean on the spell check now. Typewriters don't have spell check.
When it comes to software, I despise Microsoft's Word or any program that offers to do radical surgery to my prose. I like spell check, but that's it. At the end of the day, I know how to write, and I don't need the crutches offered to functional illiterates faking their way through their careers. The rise of AI is certain to exacerbate this tragedy of idiots with keyboards. AI will reduce the entire world to plagiarism except for me. I refuse to use it.
Typewriters are experiencing a minor resurgence. Van Neistat might have something do with that. The guy uses all the cameras and tech he can get his hands on but prefers to write on a typewriter. I think the typewriter is more of a visual prop for his videos than an actual tool for writing. I think many of the people using typewriters have a fetish for the machine. One YouTube writer admitted that he takes his typewritten pages and keys them again into his Macbook. Why would anyone do this?
This brings us to the issue of process. Every writer has a process for getting words to the page or screen. Hemingway would begin with a pencil and write the first draft in longhand. Then, he would type the second draft. Then, he would retype the second draft into a third draft. That process of writing and rewriting acted as a refinery for his spartan prose. I do a similar refining process for my own writing except I don't leave a paper trail.
There is something to be said for writing in longhand. Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk writes his first drafts in longhand. Part of me would like to make longhand part of my own process. Longhand is to the computer what acoustic is to electric on the guitar. A good song written on an acoustic guitar will still sound great on an electric guitar. That process rarely works in the opposite direction. Technology kills that raw element in the human spirit.
Writers who use the typewriter are trying to recapture that raw element, but I think they are using the wrong machine. The right machine is an old fashioned pencil. A mechanical pencil will also do. The pencil allows you to make mistakes. The eraser corrects small mistakes. Larger mistakes require more violence as you draw lines through entire paragraphs or draw arrows to where they will be moved in the final draft.
There is more freedom in the pencil than the typewriter. Typewriters don't make the writing better. They just make the writing permanent. When you add up the paper and used typewriter ribbons, this becomes an expensive and aggravating waste for words that will end up on a computer screen.
Most of what I write begins as notes on pieces of paper. I prefer to use the scraps of junk paper I recycle from the junk mail that comes into my mailbox. Junk paper kills all urges to perfectionism. I could never use one of those fancy Moleskine notebooks because I would hate to mess them up with my scratches. Creativity is a messy affair. Perfectionism is the enemy of true genius. Junk paper is the antidote to perfectionism.
I am a fan of wring longhand and using the computer. I am not a fan of the typewriter. I would go back to the notebook before going back to the typewriter. The typewriter does have one supreme virtue. It is free from the distractions that plague writers on the computer. I keep my tech dumb, so this has never been a problem for me. I receive zero notifications on my computer. Apparently, other writers don't know about this trick. The other thing is that I do not use a smartphone which is a distraction even for people using typewriters.
There is a middle ground for people who like the convenience of the computer paired with the zero distractions of a typewriter. The Freewrite is one such device. These things need a name, and I prefer "electronic typewriters." They are nothing new. I remember Brother making things like this where you could type a draft electronically before it put it to paper. I think these devices are essential for those writers who need to kill the temptations and create a distraction free place to create. Personally, I think you are better off with a quiet room, a notebook, and a pencil. Whatever you create will not suffer from being keyed into a computer. In fact, that process will improve what you write.
I am a mid-tech type of guy. so I am not going back to using a manual typewriter. For me, it is the notebook and the computer. This process does not have the sex appeal of banging on typewriter keys with a bottle of scotch and a smoldering cigarette on hand. I truly think the typewriter geeks are pretending to be writers and want the props to complete the performance. I think George RR Martin gets it exactly right as he uses an old MS-DOS machine unconnected to the internet and running Wordstar. That is the epitome of mid-tech. That was me on the RadioShack computer using WordPerfect and a dot matrix printer. Today, I would use that same setup as long as I could transfer the files to my internet connected computer. But I am doing fine with my current tools.
