Typewriters, & Things People Don't Think About (anymore)

And a few fears you may need to vanquish.

People wonder how to match the precise editing that a computer offers on a typewriter.

Or how you write without any mistakes.

The answer: you don't. I mean, you probably don’t.

A typewriter is the ultimate drafting tool, and the purpose of drafting, at least traditionally, is to get the thoughts to paper.

You can get white out strips and the like, though those create difficulties in mass quantities. They're more for fixing small errors in finished manuscripts, letters, lists, or forms and the like.

What do you do when you mess up? Well, you can type a row of X's over it. Or you blot it out with a pen, or just keep flying.

You'll mess up, you're human.

Sometimes, beauty comes through in the errors. I often put in the wrong word and it turns out to be 10x better than the word I'd planned. As Jackson Pollock said, sort of 'I deny the accident.'

So once you get a draft done, a lot of the work is done. The hardest part is moving from blank page to fleshed out creation.

Nabakov wrote on index cards and shuffled them around to find the story, or rather, the best way to tell it. Woody Allen wrote all of his scripts on an SM3, and he just cut out pieces and taped them elsewhere.

It doesn't matter, just get it done.

Now, yes, cut and paste on a computer word program can be invaluable, however it is a little bit too easy. Meaning, you CAN over-edit. You know, lose the essence and the vitality of the original piece.

Think of On The Road: Jack Kerouac wrote it entirely from start to finish three times, on a scroll, and chose the best one at the end. That's one approach.

The point is, the world wants you digitized. It's a plan that's been in place for a long, long time. Think of 1984 by George Orwell, and the lectures of Rudolf Steiner from 1913 about your 'electric doppleganger.'

So, refuse to submit. As a write, especially, refuse to submit. I know writers that are getting a lot done with AI: unfortunately, they're also murdering their own souls.

To write is not MERELY to put down words: it is to translate the human experience, pass it from heart to heart like a bright torch, and defend it to the death.

So, here I go again, in another missive about the beauty and power of a vintage writing machine, and that's because it's why I'm here... to remain alive as a human, primarily, and as a journalist of my own experience, secondarily. I've been too much one or the other, though never too much alive.

So, what do you do with your mistakes? You embrace them.

You create writing that celebrates its own flaws, idiosyncrasies, typos. You'll be amazed how odd it is to type without spell check after years of using it, and also at how much deeper the curiosity for word origins goes. If you spell something wrong, you probably don't know the root words.

We charge in with a willingness to make mistakes. I can't tell you how powerful this surrender is, unless you already know.

Get off of social media for a year, and write a page per day, and your whole life changes. You come alive again.

When you begin this process, Google suffers a blow, Bill Gates loses a millisecond of sleep, the greenery begins to flourish, leaves heave off ethereal light, innocence returns.

Bukowski usually wrote drunk. Wolfe while fondling his genitals. Whatever gets you into the full flow of the lifestream.

That's exactly what the world needs… Living beacons, aglow with life, shedding brilliant words. Do you dare?

I'm only here for a point in time, doing the things I do for as long as I can.

One of those things is delivering typewriters into the hands of warriors: warriors for truth and peace and light.

Write on, forever.

Steven Budden Jr.

Classic Typewriter Co.

classictypewriter.com

PS. I host a page per day challenge once per month or so. Join us by replying.