❧ One Year with My Typewriter ❧
At the beginning of 2024, I confidently declared that I didn't want a typewriter, even as I expressed my frustration with the modes of writing and sharing that were available to me: word processing and blogging. Although later that spring I became very excited to share my writing outside of the confines of blogging by building my own website, my troubles with composition continued for a number of months. I was wanting to add some friction into my writing process to get around the problems that I have with editing. Namely, I love editing. I will happily polish a sentence or paragraph--written by me or someone else, it doesn't matter--over and over, as many times as I can. Because, I realized, word processing does not separate the processes of drafting and editing cleanly enough, I needed to slow things down and I decided to experiment with ways of doing so.
First was handwriting. My handwriting is small, cramped, and must be pushed across the page, as I am left-handed. Although hand-writing for a long period of time can't be easy for anyone, circumstances seem particularly stacked against me in this regard. Still, my first plan was to hand-write drafts that I was working on in a notebook, and then re-write those drafts, double spaced, on lined loose-leaf paper for editing. And then once a piece was more or less in final form, type it up on the computer and do final edits. By late summer I realized that this method was not working for me. I believe the principles were sound, but the execution was too slow. Hand-writing multiple pages multiple times made the act of writing too laborious for real progress.
Then one hot, sunny Saturday, our neighbors across the street emptied their very-full garage for a sale. The stuff they had was really nice, ranging from vintage to new. One thing that caught my eye glinting in the sunlight was a typewriter. I don't remember much about it except that it looked old. "That still works," my neighbor said, "All it needs is a new ribbon." This machine, which looked like it was maybe from the 30s or 40s, was not what I needed. But I began to seriously reconsider the idea of getting a typewriter. It could be my Goldilocks: hand-writing slowed my writing process down too much, word-processing made it too glib for real discipline, but type-writing had the promise to sit between them, just right.
After a few days of obsessive thought, I began to do my research on types, brands, and sellers. I had used a couple of electric typewriters as a child and knew that I would never want to use one: too loud. But a manual seemed promising. Partly for reasons of price and practicality, I decided that I would not pursue typewriters for beauty or mystique, but for usefulness. Therefore, something from the late 60s or early 70s would do. By the 70s, typewriter manufacturers had made these devices about as modern as they could get. I found someone selling the Smith Corona Galaxie Deluxe, a typewriter with some bells and whistles like a power-space key and a key for un-jamming type slugs. Most attractively, this model has a 12-inch wide carriage, meaning that it can accommodate US letter size paper in both portrait and landscape orientations.
I think of this typewriter as the kind that a mom from the late 60s would buy to write letters, type recipes, and loan to the kids for school assignments. It has a very Brady Bunch feel, not the sought-after beauty of a 1930s Underwood or a Hermes 3000. No matter. I wanted something that works.
Waiting for my typewriter to be refurbished and shipped out, I started poking around for vintage typing videos and also ordered a vintage typing manual. What I began to intuit was that I would need to spend a lot of time just learning how to use it. Not simply learning to set margins or center a title on the page, but to learn how to type properly with it. I've been a touch-typist since I was a teenager, and yet my first attempts at typing when it finally arrived in September were rough, full of skips and mistakes. I didn't understand what some of the functions of the typewriter were for, like the button that said MR or the dial labeled PAGE GAUGE. I started, very gingerly, to figure out how it all worked together.
Typewriters are needy things, I soon found out. Mine weighs 15lbs by itself, 21lbs in the case. It needs to be covered when not in use to minimize the build-up of dust. It also needs a soft pad under it to absorb sound. And correction tape or correction tabs to cover mistakes (everyone in the typewriter world emphatically says not to use white-out.) And replacement ribbons. And a copy holder, since I was planning to type from a written documents. And some means of cleaning the type slugs; I chose kneaded erasers.
Learning to type on a manual typewriter is a little bit like learning to play an instrument, even if you already know how to touch type. Finesse is required to reach excellence. When you are typing on any sort of electronic keyboard, whether that's an electric typewriter keyboard, a mechanical computer keyboard, or a chiclet keyboard, your goal is to do one thing: to press the key down to the end of its range of travel, which completes a circuit that tells the machine which letter to produce. It doesn't matter if you hit that key hard or soft, fast or slow, as long as you complete the circuit.
Manual typewriters are different. The metaphor I often see people use is that you should think of the keys as being hot so that you want to remove your finger from them as soon as possible after striking them. Reading that before I got my typewriter, I failed to understand what it meant. I also don't like the image of burning myself typewriter.
After I got the hang of typing on the typewriter, another image presented itself to me: rather than pretending the keys were hot, I wanted to bounce the keys down like a ball. With a manual typewriter, your goal is NOT to keep your finger on the key as you press it down to the end of its range of travel. Instead, you want to quickly hit the key hard enough that it bounces down to the end of its range of travel on its own, raises the type slug to hit the page, and bounces back up into place. It's really more like dribbling a basketball, or that feeling you get when the pinball makes contact with the paddle. You're striking with enough force that the object will bounce away from you and come back under its own power.
The other thing that I hadn't full anticipated was how much finger strength this would take. I am really not sure why the QWERTY keyboard was designed so that two of the most commonly used letter, A & P, are hit by the pinkie, the weakest finger. Unlike with an electronic keyboard, the force that you use to strike the key absolutely matters on a manual typewriter. Hit the key too gently and you'll get a faint impression, or the type-slug might skip without hitting the paper at all. Hit it too hard and not only will you get a dark impression, but the typewriter might skip forward an extra, unwanted space. Typing well on the manual typewriter, then, means gaining strength in your weaker fingers and modulating the strength on your strong ones. And this really can only be done through lots of practice, as it is a matter of muscle memory.
Is it fun to type on a manual typewriter? Yes. I think this is because of the bouncy aspect of it--typing seems to carry its own energy. It took me a number of months, however, before I could "forget the machine" (as the writers of my typing manual say) and stop being self-conscious enough to just enjoy the process of using it. But even though I find it more enjoyable than typing on my computer, it is definitely more fatiguing. I am not yet to the point where I can type for hours as the legendary writers of the 20th century (and the less-legendary typing-pool typists) were able to. I can feel soreness in my forearms after an hour or so.
To my mind, the largest drawback of the typewriter is the noise. Because people in my house are on different sleep cycles, I can only use my typewriter in the afternoon and evening, which eliminates some of my most productive writing time for the day. A thick, felt pad under the typewriter eliminates the noise that comes from the typewriter rattling against the desk, but the noise of the slugs hitting the paper is still quite loud. The other drawback is the relative lack of portability. Because I only have one desk, each time I want to use the typewriter, I have to pick all 15lbs up off the shelf and put it on my desk, and then put it back again when I have other work to do. If I had a separate desk where the typewriter could always live without needing to be moved, that would be less of an issue.
BUT DID IT CHANGE HOW I WRITE?
You may be surprised to find that I did not draft this on a typewriter, but just typed it straight into Notepad. That's because I reserve the typewriter for when I am exercising creativity or trying to develop my thought. Any time I really need to slow down and chew on what I'm writing, that's when it's worth going to the effort of drafting by hand and using the typewriter. But a piece like this, which is fairly straightforward, can be typed into the computer without much damage to it.
So yes, for the more complex things, the typewriter continues to change how I write. Until recently, I never composed on the typewriter but only transcribed hand-written drafts. But now I am comfortable enough with the machine that I am starting to compose on it. I'm looking forward to continuing to develop my relationship with the typewriter in this way.
And it does indeed change how I edit. The other day I was writing and started getting sucked into the temptation of editing some pages I had already typed out while I was working on a page still in the machine. I caught myself and was able to simply set those pages out of reach and return to the one that I was working on. Such a simple solution to the problem, but something impossible to do with either a notebook or a digital document.
One thing that I didn't anticipate was what other kinds of writing would be opened up for me because of the typewriter. Due to my aforementioned bad handwriting, I haven't written any letters since childhood. Being able to address envelopes and write letters on the typewriter has given me an interest in mail and stationery that I didn't have before, as well as creating some connections with new pen pals.
HAVE I BECOME A TYPEWRITER HOBBYIST?
No. I do not romanticize typewriters. They have their charm, but they are also noisy, discordant machines. Typewriters were invented because handwriting could not keep up with the pace of capitalism. They were absolutely intended to be business machines and were a means of exploiting the labor of women--a theme that would extend into early word processing and computing. They are ingenious and can often be beautiful, but I still see them as a means to an end. I don't have plans to own more than one at a time.
Typewriters are also just terribly inconvenient when compared to word processing, there's no getting around it. I am happy to use a typewriter for creative writing but glad I do not have to use one every day at my job.
But having used one to write, it gives me insight into the process of other writers who used them.
For instance: right now, I am reading James Boggs's enormous biography, Baldwin: A Love Story. James Baldwin's career spanned the 1940s to the 1980s, a prime period of the typewriter. Boggs only talks about the mechanics Baldwin's writing insofar as to say that when Baldwin was young and poor, he could not afford a typewriter and so had to either borrow one or compose with a fountain pen instead. Then Baldwin got a second-hand typewriter as he started making a little money from writing, and then at some point bought his own. What kind of typewriter did Baldwin use? I wondered. He took a typewriter with him on his global travels all the time. Did he have a small ultra-portable, or did he have a "luggable," semi-portable like me? Was this man adding ~20lbs to his luggage everywhere he went?
The answer is yes. The internet tells me that Baldwin's favorite typewriter was an Olympia SM7, a semi-portable German typewriter that I am guessing he bought in France or Switzerland. I found a picture of Baldwin working at it in 1966, confirming this fact. I took a closer look at this model, which in many ways is similar to mine except for a few difference on the keyboard. One of them is absolutely insane.
Using a vintage typewriter keyboard makes clear that typewriters were developed in a different world than word processors. On my typewriter, I don't have to shift for the cent sign, but I do have to shift for the dollar sign. I have a key that includes 1/4 and 1/2 symbols. The apostrophe is stranded above the 2 key. All of this reflects the fact that (a) things are a lot more expensive now than they were when typewriter keyboards were first developed and (b) although we associate them with creative writing, typewriters were mostly used for business and school work.
On Baldwin's Olympia SM7, I spotted a few differences from mine in the number row. The first is that there is no 1 key (a holdover from older typewriters. You are just supposed to use the lower-case L instead). Another difference is that it has a key that I find ridiculous: a ! above a 3/4 symbol. I have seen many exclamation points in Baldwin's writing, but never a 3/4 symbol. Every time he wanted an exclamation point, he had to shift and reach up to hit it with his right pinkie. God, I would have resented that every time. Now I know that each exclamation point I find in his writing was considered really necessary because he had to overcome a useless 3/4 key to type it.
October 2025