I guess on some level it is a kooky affectation, I can't deny it. I'm a kooky guy.
But it does actually work for me.
I write between 1,000 and 2,000 words every day on one of my four machines. In nine months I've used up a whole ream of A4 paper and cranked out nearly 100,000 words of stream of consciousness, diary entries, commentaries, scenarios, background, character sketches and first draft stories.
One of the reasons it works for me is on some level I can't explain I'm really drawn to the typing machine.
It stems from the one I had as a kid. I just love the smell of them, I love the way they feel, I love their industrial design and their blunt solidity.
Even when I used a computer for everything, it was always non-justified Courier 12, and so now I'm on the typewriter all my manuscripts look like that because that's the way they come out.
Computer keyboards just don’t have the same feel, you can’t work up a solid, chattering, crashing rhythm, finished with an explosive flourish of the carriage return at the end of each line.
Okay, it is a lot easier to edit your shit once you’ve splurged it onto the computer screen, but like Harlan Ellison says, “Who said art should be easy?”
And I actually like the fact you don’t produce perfect copy. It’s full of flaws and mistakes – welcome to the human race.
On a pragmatic level, using the manual typewriter has changed the way I produce words. I used to be crippled by editing as I wrote. It really slowed up the writing process for me, and it meant that I would spend a lot of time polishing segments that ultimately had to be cut from the story.
I don’t get so attached to my work, either, and tend to see it as an exercise in getting to the end of the story rather than achieving literary perfection in the moment of composition. With the computer file, I used to get hung up on certain turns of phrase and my drafts got blurred and patchy.
Using a typewriter has enabled me to think in terms of complete drafts. I write all the way to the end of a story, and then go back and edit. It’s separated out the process into its constituent parts: composition, editing, re-writing.
I love the fact that you actually produce something by hand at the end of the process. When you strike a key, it makes a mark in the world and it doesn't go away if the power goes out.
There's no spell check, no internet connection, no Solitaire and no Microsoft Word paper clip to tell you it looks like you're writing a letter, would you like some help?
Of course, those typewritten pages do pile up and pose something of a paper filing problem after a while. Might have to get me a new four-drawer. |
