Typewriter < Almost Anything These Days
This is a blog I wrote a few years back (circa 2010) about the glorification of new writers who use typewriters. Although, I’ve slightly changed my opinions a little bit since then. Next time, I’ll address the benefits of a typewriter.
I’m under the impression that anyone who romanticizes a typewriter has never actually used one. They just romanticize it, because it was used by the Modernists and early Post-Modernist writers, whom everyone wants to grow up to be. (I’m assuming that they all used these. Frankly, a writer knowing how another writer got their story in typeface is as useful as a scientist knowing how Steven Hawkings gets his theories out of his talking chair and into books.) Somehow they think that the magic of obnoxiously loud and slow clicking banging of keys and blaring ring at the end of each line like an M1 Grand (Yeah, I have played a Call of Duty game) will somehow hyper-tune them into the literary ether.
The reason all the Modernists used a typewriter (I’m assuming) is that it was faster than writing everything by hand, and it was the latest technology of the time. When I write I cannot type my words out fast enough. My mind goes too quickly. So then I find myself trying to recreate that comparably perfect wording that first passed through my head. And this is on a laptop.
Look into the Modernist/occultist practice of automatic writing. Essentially it is where one person will dictate a story to someone else who would write it down. It was believed to be almost a channeling of something otherworldly. It requires quick notation, and I’m sure they’d use an MP3 recorder and a word processor if they had them.
The biggest reason that I’m against this idea that typewriters make you more of a “writer” is because they don’t help your writing. I would recommend writing on a PDA or a smart phone before I’ll recommend writing on a typewriter. They have spell check, grammar check, and now diction check. I don’t care how well you spell, how great your grammar is, or how perfect your typing is; it could be better. The computer provides you with your first edits. The typewriter provides you with a need for ribbons and white-out.
“Besides, real writers use quills” (obviously an update from the 2010 draft).
Also even though computers aren’t the most reliable things in the world, they aren’t thrown out of order from a cliched gust of wind. You can even e-mail your Word document to yourself in case your house burns down. No need for a fireproof safe (If you’re working on a typewriter and don’t have a fireproof safe for your yet-to-be-published work then you’re just tempting fate). That e-mail will even work as a poor man’s copyright (time stamped by a 3rd party and usable as evidence in court).
Now I can understand some reasons why you might use a typewriter. If you need candles, a glass red wine you picked up for eight dollars from the local CVS, and a typewriter in order to feel inspired, then more power to you. Or if you’re from the old generation and you’re more familiar with a typewriter then go for it. As long as stories get storied and poesy gets poesied. It doesn’t matter what gimmick you have to motivate you, but it doesn’t make you closer to the platonic ideal of the writer.
Next time, the real benefits of a writer using a typewriter!
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- The Not Completely Obsolete Typewriter | Writing Is Magic - [...] been awhile since I had originally written about the stupidity of the typewriter. Years have passed, and I still…
I learned how to type on a typewriter, which is probably why I’ll keep a love for them.
Also, this movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juko0sAndsA
It is definitely how post-apocalyptic literature will be written, which I should be more ashamed to admit, is why I’ve learned to have a different feel for the typewriter. Although, electric typewriters feel kinda dumb still.
Pounding those keys wouldn’t have been as good of a scene if he would have pulled out something like an Apple 2. Plus, “You’re the man now, dog” is not a thing that is yelled enough.
I love Finding Forrester, even though I disagree with some of the points it makes.
I remember my one and only experience with a typewriter. I had borrowed my dad’s old “portable” typewriter (it weighted 25 pounds, but it came with a carrying case and a handle!), dusted it off, and set it up in my living room. Was in college, and it seemed like a typewriter might be a nice break from word processing all day.
The typewriter was in working condition. Tested out the keys. Excellent, snappy feedback (so what if the p and its adjoining letters all came up at the same time).
Only problem was the ribbon. It had all of two sentences left in it. The manufacturer had shuttered in the mid-80s. I hadn’t a clue of where to start to get a replacement ribbon…was there a person I should see? The typewriter from the mid-60s. It didn’t take the ones that electronic typewriters used.
My writing time became an orgy of research about typewriters and typewriting ribbons, and in the end, I thought, “I’d get more value out of writing this by hand.”
There’s something very fun and new (despite being old) about the violent instantaneous transfer of thought into tangible text. When I think about printers for too long I get freaked out.
But ribbon research is one reason I’ve never bought a purely mechanical typewriter.