I read about a local event in Kirkland last Thursday that allowed people to try writing on an old-fashioned typewriter, which has long been replaced by computers, laptops, netbooks, and other methods of electronic communication.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of the…shall we call it “poetry”?…inherent in writing been swept away along with it. I have a 1926 Royal Portable typewriter myself, along with a Remington Deluxe Noiseless. I don’t do a whole lot of writing on it, but having spent some time with it, I can sense what’s been lost.
Some positive benefits to typewriters are immediately apparent. One, there is no such thing as “start up time.” It’s starts as soon as you do. It doesn’t require a half an hour wait for it to perform system updates. There is something to be said about mechanical versus the microchip and the digital. My Royal is almost a century old, yet it has the original parts and everything works fine. Contrast this with the laptop my grandparents bought me for college (I’m not saying when but it wasn’t a century ago) that has been horrendously outdated for several years and can stay on only for an hour or two before it heats up like a furnace. I keep it only as a backup in the event something befalls my newer laptop.
I think it is fair to say no writer has ever had his typewriter shut down suddenly, without warning, leaving them to dread if their work had been saved while it goes through the elongated process of restarting itself. Even if the keys stop working or parts jam up, the words on paper aren’t going to magically disappear. At worst, several of the typewriter keys become stuck, and a short whiff of WD-40 always sets them back into working order.
Consider that Cormac McCarthy maintained his typewriter just by using a gas station air blower to clear out any debris or dust. He didn’t need a “Geek Squad” to do it. And I very much doubt that Hemingway had to sit back and wait for his typewriter to unfreeze itself during a particularly productive writing session.
Sure, there are countless options available on a typical word processor; one can change the fonts, rearrange texts, check their spelling, or add subheads and italicize various passages with just a click of the mouse or shortkey.
But many of these features have merely led to a sense of laziness and dependency on the part of the writer, including yours truly. We’re no longer required to have a competent knowledge about spelling or proper grammar. In fact, the software presumes we don’t, which is why we have that soviet commissar-style auto-correct feature that changes our words every step of the way to what it thinks we meant to write, even if we meant exactly what we wrote. They also try to second-guess the way we phrase things.
On a typewriter, a writer has no such restrictions or controls, and thus nothing else to blame for their mistakes. They must be able to type accurately and be more prudent about what they type, because it is permanent; there is no easy way to cut and paste, or delete mistakes. While it is possible to purchase ink ribbons with black, red, and white ink, which allow for spelling errors, it is nevertheless a painstaking and meticulous task. A writer finds it more preferable to get it right the first time.
The greatest tragedy is the irritable clicking of modern-day keyboards that resemble the sound of a mouse nibbling in some unknown section of the house. Today a writer is seen, but not heard as he pecks on his silent, petite keyboard so as not to disturb anyone’s thoughts. I prefer the loud and continuous click-clack of a typewriter over a barren land of noiselessness, aside from the banal sputter of computer fans and the occasional shrill of a printer. As Sean Connery said in “Finding Forrester,” sometimes the simple rhythm of typing gets us from page one to page two. Typing also unapologetically declares to the world you’re writing, and while the ongoing mechanical roar might drive others out of their minds, at least then we writers won’t be alone in that regard.
TJ Martinell is a reporter with the Kirkland Reporter.
