I never considered buying a typewriter. Typewriters simply didn’t appear in my version of reality. And now I have one.
My mother was a prolific letter writer and I witnessed her writing machine evolution as I grew up. Her first typewriter was a teal Olivetti. I listened to the clacking of the typebars (the arms that slam letters onto paper) as she wrote in the mornings. This specific model was ‘portable’, which meant it came in a green and black case that zipped shut. The carry handle was made from plastic and the typewriter weighed just under 6 kilograms. Portable in the 1970’s indicated that something came with a handle and it could be lifted; even if only for a brief moment.
When I was a little older the electric typewriter superseded the Olivetti. I don’t remember the model, but it was beige and you had to plug it into a power outlet. The clacking of the word-making continued, but it was softer, and the words and sentences were strung together more quickly than with the manual typewriter. And then, in the late 1980’s we bought our first computer. That was when word making and sentence construction fell silent, and the mechanical process was replaced with word processing. And while I feel nostalgic as I recount this evolution, back then we oohed and ahhed at each new technology that fell under my mother’s letter-writing fingers.
Why I bought a typewriter
As I said, I never gave typewriters much thought after my mum got rid of her last electric typewriter. The machines became irrelevant to my life. And then I saw this video by Van Neistat and instantly knew I wanted one. The three words that he said which clinched it for me was, ‘find your voice’.
Any writer will tell you that finding your voice is one of the most important elements of becoming an author of any significance. In fact, finding your voice is important when undertaking any artistic endeavour. And it’s also amongst the most difficult things to understand and define for yourself. For a writer to discover their voice they have to know who they are and what makes them unique. They have to understand what is distinctive about how they see the world, and then find the words to bring their perspective to life in a manner that’s authentic to them.
I have written at length about the importance of knowing one’s self. And I believe that it takes knowing one’s self to find one’s voice. Which leads me back to me. I write to find my voice, to understand who I am in relation to the world. And, if writing on a typewriter is going to get me closer to understanding who I am, where do I pay?
So, I bought a typewriter
I bought my typewriter from Margaret. I found Margaret through an online ad she’d posted. Margaret lives about 20 minutes up the road from me. She kept this typewriter in her hallway as an ornament. I bought it because it was affordable, it’s my favourite colour, and it seemed to work. I didn’t ask Margaret why she sold it. Maybe she was updating the decor in her home.
I brought it home just before Christmas and spent the afternoon typing gibberish, stream of consciousness stuff so that I could become acquainted with my Silver Reed SR200. And it was and still is awesome. I love the sound it makes. The way each letter hits the paper and leaves an impression. It’s loud, and the faster I type, the more I remembered lying in my bed as a kid as the clacking sound from my mum’s study drifted to my bedroom. I’d forgotten the sound, and here it is again, in my home, and this time I’m making it.
I needed new ribbon. The ribbon in the typewriter when I brought it home was old and dry. I found a site called Charlie Foxtrot and bought myself a reel of green ribbon. I like the idea of writing in green. Apparently many of the letters that newspapers receive from the crazies and the conspiracists are written in bright colours. The Guardian even recommends that you not use green ink when writing letters to the editor. And then there’s Mansfield Cummings, the first head of MI6 in the UK who signed all his letters in green ink, using only the letter ‘C’. And my favourite poet, Pablo Neruda wrote in green, saying it was the colour of hope.
My ribbon arrived and I now write on my typewriter a couple of times a week. I am genuinely surprised by how unusual writing on a typewriter feels. It’s different to any other form of writing I’ve experienced. And I love it. But, what surprised me most is what this not-so-little-but-still-considered-portable typewriter has taught me the past few weeks.
It’s mechanical
I press a key, an arm lifts, flicks forward and slams a metal letter onto paper over a strip of inked ribbon. This is the most physical writing experience I’ve had. Writing with a pen, pencil or on a computer isn’t in any way the same. This isn’t even writing, it’s stamping your thoughts onto paper. It makes the act of writing feel significant. The words I write on the typewriter feel more momentous and honest than what I write on my laptop.
It’s noisy
My writing hasn’t been something I could hear before. I’m writing this article on my laptop and it’s a quiet affair. There is a light clicking sound as I hit the keys, but someone could be sleeping next to me right now and I wouldn’t disturb them. But, when it comes to the the typewriter, my wife can hear me write on the other side of the house. I woke her a couple of nights back when I decided to type a poem.
And the sound of my typing has made me more aware of my writing process. When the words are coming easily, and the ideas are clear, the letters tap out onto the page quickly, slapping the page like gunfire. When I can’t find the words, the tapping stalls, becomes less rhythmic. It’s as if the sound of the typing echoes the accuracy and clarity of my thoughts. Sound adds another dimension to the process of writing and makes me more aware of myself while I write.
Resources are artificially constrained
I only have that much paper in the house and I only have my one green ribbon. The knowledge that I might run out of these and have to buy more of each artificially forces me to be more considered in what I write. I want to get the words down, but when I’m on the typewriter I don’t indulge in lazy writing. Along with the sound, the reality that I only have half a ream of paper left and I’ve used a large part of the ink from this ribbon makes me more discerning in what I write.
It’s not digital
This one sounds obvious, but it is one of my favourite things about the typewriter. Not only don’t I have to plug it in to use it, but by some wonderful miracle, my typewriter combines my laptop with a printer.
There’s a principle in technology called dematerialisation. Dematerialisation is a key innovation strategy which reduces the amount of materials used to deliver a capability. Think of a Walkman, a camera, a boombox, a word processor, a computer, and a phone. These are all things that were dematerialised with the invention of the smart phone. From having a room full of ‘things’ that do one or two things well, we now have a single device that fits into our pockets capable of doing all these things and more.
However, the way I see it, the advent of the computer materialised the printer. Where perviously, one could type on a typewriter and walk away with the written word on a page, today you need a computer and a printer to have anything printed on a physical page. In some ways we moved backwards when we abandoned the typewriter.
It’s not digital – II
I can’t change the font on my typewriter. The font is called ‘Elite’ and is common in typewriter world. Yet, the way my letters come to life on the page are totally unique to my typewriter. The hollow semi-circles in the ‘e’ tends to smudge closed. The top of the ‘d’ doesn’t always show. The words and thoughts I transfer to paper are mine and when I use my Silver Reed the final output is utterly unique to me.
And then there’s the fact that I can’t backspace or delete. Van Neistat said that by not being able to correct your work on a typewriter you are better able to find your voice. And I sort of agree with him. When I write something and it isn’t quite right, I look for ways of making the mistake work, instead of using white out to cover the mistake. And example is when I wrote a poem about fireworks. The final line read:
‘to briefly know what it’s like to be gods.’
I realised that the line would work harder if I referred to us forgetting that we aren’t gods. So instead of re-writing the line, I looked for a way to incorporate my mistake, and came up with this ending:
‘to briefly know what it’s like to be gods, and to forget that we aren’t.’
In this way I find new avenues to writing that I wouldn’t ever explore on a computer. It helps me uncover my so-called voice. Half the process of finding one’s voice is understanding what having a voice means. It’s a process of dismantling, removing the noise that obscures what you need to say in a way that only you can. Taking away your insecurities, cauterising the beliefs you’ve adopted around what makes for good writing, good art. Picasso said;
It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
That is finding your voice. And I don’t believe I’ve found it yet. But I’m getting closer.
It’s not digital III
“The manual typewriter doesn’t process your words but just prints them immediately...”
This is a quote from the card Charlie Foxtrot sent me along with my green ribbon. And I hadn’t thought about it until I’d read the message. It’s true, there is an absence of processing on a typewriter. It’s more pure to put thoughts directly onto paper..
And there is something else to this. On my laptop screen I don’t only read my own words, I also encounter everyone else’s ideas. On the screen in front of me now, I browse websites, read emails, read the news, all things written by others. I spend more time reading other people’s words on here than I do my own.
But, on my Silver Reed, unless I give someone else permission to use it, the only words I will read on that machine are my own. And this makes for an intimate and personal writing partnership.
The price we pay for technology
“Nothing is free. Everything has to be paid for. For every profit in one thing, payment in some other thing. For every life, a death. Even your music, of which we have heard so much, that had to be paid for. Your wife was the payment for your music. Hell is now satisfied.”
Ted Hughes
Having bought the typewriter, I was reminded of how easy it is to write endlessly on a laptop. How many more notes I can take on my computer in a meeting than when I write by hand. And then I considered the price we pay for this luxury to write words at will without considering what we write, and not caring that we are unlikely to read much of what we’ve written. And I now believe that the price for this extravagance is that we lose sight of the words that matter. The gems of great ideas are lost amongst the drivel written on PowerPoint slides and Word documents.
Mark Twain wrote, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.” The price for the convenience to write a lot is that we don’t take the time to write intentionally, with clarity.
Everyone should own and use a typewriter.