Ten Ways a Typewriter Will Improve Your Writing
And how to get your hands on one before they are gone forever.
A Typewriter Slows Things Way Down
The machine will only go so fast. I push it hard and it gets stuck, or the escapement skips. I have taught myself to understand there is no rush. It will get done. It doesn’t matter if I have a deadline. It’s all going to flow the moment I relax and let my heart sink in with zero pressure.
Technical Issues Become a Blessing in Disguise
A slug gets stuck (the thing that prints to the page). The ribbon needs a manual change in direction. A new page needs loading. Or one needs alignment. These are all normal issues you will face with a typewriter. That said, you will not get interrupted by notifications that have nothing to do with your writing like you would on your computer or cell phone.
A Tangible Product is Immediately in Hand
This is by far my favorite.
I recall the first time I showed my children how the machine worked. They watched as I pressed a key down that moved a lever that bent at an angle and slammed the slug down on a page, and if done with enough force, with modest ink on the ribbon, it would print characters in real-time. Perfectly. Everything visible. You watch how it happens. You can’t do that on a computer.
In the same way riding a bicycle around is different than texting in the back of an Uber — you come to appreciate the difference of making your way with something 100% mechanical, that depends on you to move forward.
It Forces You to Consolidate
Let’s say you’re writing about something and the lines are pouring out and you see that you’re about to get to the end of the page. You know when this page ends, you must then take the page out, load a new one in, and in my case I like to archive everything, so I offer a prayer on the top left (OMSAIRAM to my children), followed by the page number, date, time, and THEN I tab over and continue writing whatever idea was developing on the previous page.
I know I don’t want to carry this idea to the next page. So I have to fit it in. It may not be this way if I had more space, and it sharpens the prose as a result.
The Ribbon Colors Give an Unfair Advantage
This was one of the things I first discovered about the typewriter. That I could have dialogue between characters just with a change of the ink. And that it would suggest things in a number of ways. There’s added mystique when you do this on a typewriter.
To me, it appears very reminiscent of text messaging. There’s a quick exchange and it doesn’t matter who is speaking because the two characters know. This technique helps a lot with pacing.
No One Can Highlight Typewritten Passages on Medium
David Perlmutter, this is for you. First know I am your fan and am grateful for the amount of support you offer writers on Medium. Let me be clear in saying that you rock.
That said, I’m sure you know by now you can’t highlight any of the following:
You’ll be More Productive
Using a typewriter is such a pain in the ass that by the time you get it ready with ribbon and page loaded you will feel guilty if you don’t get at least a thousand words out of the session. That’s like two double-spaced pages. Maybe three. You do that for a month and you’ve got 90 pages. You do that for six weeks and you’ve got a book. It’s in your hands. It’s done. It’s ready. You can sit in your favorite reading chair and dive in. Or start all over again. It can become very addicting.
“After all, Hanks wrote his book on a computer. He’s not an idiot.” — Lee Cowan
You Can Scan and Export Your Work for Digital Distribution
I like that I can scan the pages and offer them daily to you in raw state. Using Kofax OmniPage it is easy enough to rip all the words and publish digitally.
Quick confession: I have a fear of editing these typewritten novels. I love a polished product, don’t get me wrong. I just feel like something will be missing without the illustrations and the mistakes.
They Make a Fine Cup of NFT
Non-fungible tokens are the rave. You can put scanned pages up on OpenSea and let them sit there for the rest of time. Anytime the typewritten page is auctioned you get a 10% commission on the sale. The older the pages are, the more valuable they get. You can make this a source of passive income for the rest of your life if you invest the time and promote your auctions.
There’s Nothing Better than a Typewritten Letter
While writing letters on a typewriter improves your writing, you can leave an impact on someone better than you could with just an email or text message.
How to Get One for Yourself
Here’s how you can get your hands on a beautiful typewriter while supporting small businesses. The following are some of the experts who know how to keep these incredible machines going. Please consider supporting them.
