Typewriters. We writers love them. Historian and author David McCullough writes all his books on a typewriter for fear he will hit the delete key and wipe out a whole novel. Tom Hanks wrote an ode to typewriters for the New York Times this week. Famous authors have had their babies–specific typewriters upon which they tapped out their best work. You can see a list here.
I, too, have typewriter. It’s a 1935 Underwood. We found it in an antique store for $20. I paid another $100 to make it work. I don’t use it often because the keys are clunky and heavy, and I could seriously break a nail typing my name. But I do go to it for one reason. Beginnings.
When I’m on a regular computer I can crank out about 75 words a minute. (My brother said, “Yeah, 75 words a minute, but half of those are the delete key.) At that speed my thoughts are flying, but I’m not always discerning about the words. Word choice, to me, is never more important… imperative… paramount, than at the beginning of a book, of a chapter, or a scene.
How those moments start must fully engage the reader, so my mind must fully engage too. And that lovely old, black, heavy typewriter simply slows down my thinking. Besides, I feel like a writer at that typewriter. I feel all Hemingway. All Faulkner.
Now when I want to feel all Austen, I pick up a pen.