UGH I do so love your writing. I’ve always been tempted to try a typewriter but as someone who learned to type in 2nd grade in 1989 on an Apple Mackintosh, I’ll never be first-pass accurate enough to be satisfied with the way my work looks on one. Best wishes on your novels!! 😍
You learned to type in second grade?? A child prodigy! I love the feel of a typewriter under my fingers but my brain requires speed now. I feel bad about that, but there it is.
Some prolific authors have written all of their books on a MANUAL typewriter. David McCullough is one of them, and he writes long, long books. He says he thinks better when his writing is slowed down. I'm not going to argue with him!
Yeah, I understand that sentiment. My school taught all of us in 2nd grade, I think! Then I moved in 5th to a new town and they taught all the 5th graders in my new school. As you can imagine, I was bored stiff! Hahaha. Lots of Oregon Trail those days. I’m so glad to have learned back then because it’s second nature now. My girls are in 3rd/5th and their teachers have tried teaching them but there always seems to be something else “more important”
I guess today qwerty works just as well on a keyboard and typewriters are those old workhorses put out to pasture. Tom Hanks collects typewriters and when he talks about his typing machines his love for them is almost fanatical. I'll always have a soft spot for typewriters, too.
I have a friend that has a collection of OLD typewriters and I'm fascinated by them. We had an old manual typewriter when I was growing up in the '60s, and I loved pretending I was typing something important on it. My mother was a real estate agent, and she would type up her house sale contracts on it, and when the contract format would change she would give me her old, outdated carbon contracts to pretend with. Such fun for a 7-year-old.
yeah we're good / my first self-published collection of poetry was called 'Learning to Scribble' and was written in part on an old manual typewriter I bought somewhere so i could get the distinctive shape of each unique key strike / the decay / the blur of a firmly struck apostrophe / the fading at the bottom of the letters as if they were growing up out of the paper / i thought it was romantic and infact it was / i still have that book - one copy anyways of all those i ran off at kinko's copy center and had spiral bound professionally so it would lay flat when you opened it and not have a memory and then i gave them all away to friends : )
What a clever way to make your poetry stand out! And ah, yes, Kinko's. They were essential in those days before home printers. Chapbooks can be made at home now, even to the spiral binding. That's progress!
I'm not sure any of it makes our writing better, though. We still have to engage our brains.
I was swapping notes with Mikey at Cosmographia about typewriters this week. Now, just catching up with my 'saved for later' reads and this beguiling tale stopped me in my tracks. What a life of words. Gorgeous. Thank you
It's amazing that you kept the typewriter, and that it still worked! I learned qwerty on a manual and took my exams reaching the highest grade available. I'm forever grateful that I learned that skill, it has been a joy to produce words at speed.
Ramona, I love this. Yes, there is something about the feel of the keys and the click-clack and line return. What a history you and your Royal have. After I gave away my Smith Corona, I bought a word processor - don't even remember the brand. And then it was computers. First an XT and then Mac. Once I went to Mac I never went back!!
UGH I do so love your writing. I’ve always been tempted to try a typewriter but as someone who learned to type in 2nd grade in 1989 on an Apple Mackintosh, I’ll never be first-pass accurate enough to be satisfied with the way my work looks on one. Best wishes on your novels!! 😍
You learned to type in second grade?? A child prodigy! I love the feel of a typewriter under my fingers but my brain requires speed now. I feel bad about that, but there it is.
Some prolific authors have written all of their books on a MANUAL typewriter. David McCullough is one of them, and he writes long, long books. He says he thinks better when his writing is slowed down. I'm not going to argue with him!
Yeah, I understand that sentiment. My school taught all of us in 2nd grade, I think! Then I moved in 5th to a new town and they taught all the 5th graders in my new school. As you can imagine, I was bored stiff! Hahaha. Lots of Oregon Trail those days. I’m so glad to have learned back then because it’s second nature now. My girls are in 3rd/5th and their teachers have tried teaching them but there always seems to be something else “more important”
Oregon Trail! Yes!
I guess today qwerty works just as well on a keyboard and typewriters are those old workhorses put out to pasture. Tom Hanks collects typewriters and when he talks about his typing machines his love for them is almost fanatical. I'll always have a soft spot for typewriters, too.
I have a friend that has a collection of OLD typewriters and I'm fascinated by them. We had an old manual typewriter when I was growing up in the '60s, and I loved pretending I was typing something important on it. My mother was a real estate agent, and she would type up her house sale contracts on it, and when the contract format would change she would give me her old, outdated carbon contracts to pretend with. Such fun for a 7-year-old.
yeah we're good / my first self-published collection of poetry was called 'Learning to Scribble' and was written in part on an old manual typewriter I bought somewhere so i could get the distinctive shape of each unique key strike / the decay / the blur of a firmly struck apostrophe / the fading at the bottom of the letters as if they were growing up out of the paper / i thought it was romantic and infact it was / i still have that book - one copy anyways of all those i ran off at kinko's copy center and had spiral bound professionally so it would lay flat when you opened it and not have a memory and then i gave them all away to friends : )
What a clever way to make your poetry stand out! And ah, yes, Kinko's. They were essential in those days before home printers. Chapbooks can be made at home now, even to the spiral binding. That's progress!
I'm not sure any of it makes our writing better, though. We still have to engage our brains.
I was swapping notes with Mikey at Cosmographia about typewriters this week. Now, just catching up with my 'saved for later' reads and this beguiling tale stopped me in my tracks. What a life of words. Gorgeous. Thank you
Well, thank you for your kind words, both here and at Notes. I'm so glad you liked it!
Now duly subscribed. Reading beautiful words is a step towards writing some of our own
Welcome aboard! You'll find the readers who comment here are just amazing. I'm sure you'll fit right in!
Thank you so much
It's amazing that you kept the typewriter, and that it still worked! I learned qwerty on a manual and took my exams reaching the highest grade available. I'm forever grateful that I learned that skill, it has been a joy to produce words at speed.
Ramona, I love this. Yes, there is something about the feel of the keys and the click-clack and line return. What a history you and your Royal have. After I gave away my Smith Corona, I bought a word processor - don't even remember the brand. And then it was computers. First an XT and then Mac. Once I went to Mac I never went back!!