A few weeks back, eBay delivered a 1960’s typewriter to me. Finally, last night, I sat down to write. I churned out 2 pages in about 2 hours, and am slowly realizing how long it will take to write a book. Normally, on a computer, I’m a very fast typer. But I’ve been on a computer for over 25 years. On this, it’s back to the old days–I have to punch the keys with more force than I would on a computer keyboard, so the two-finger peck is working best right now. The two hours weren’t all spent typing, it was a lot of contemplation, reading, and rereading as I tried to develop the story. There were a few moments where I whipped out a paragraph in a few minutes, but for the most part I’m being very deliberate with every word and every line.
There is something very beautiful about writing this way. For one, you’re forced to slow down. I think of the words and the line, and by the time I punch a few letters, I’ve already thought of a better way to say something. When I finished a page, there was something very satisfying about actually removing the page and starting a new one. There are no power cords to trip over to erase your work–and its portable so I could work anywhere. There is no screen saver to flash or energy saver to dim the screen while you sit and think of what you want to say.
However, the two things I’ve found I miss the most are the red squiggly line for misspelled words, and of all things, global search. I found myself several times last night wanting to search for a word in the text to see if I had already used it.
My first computer had a button (the “enter” button) that said “CR” for carriage-return. I now fully understand what a carriage return is, and I love getting to the end of a line and hearing it “ding!” As for typos, I’m experimenting with corrective procedures now. The typewriter was sent to me with small rectangles of corrective tape, but I think I’ll use a fine-tip marker or the XXXXX method to cross-out words or lines I want to throw away.
It’s been a great start to a fun experiment, I’ll post about it again later in the process, to see if I’m still having this much fun.
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