{"id":2,"date":"2012-03-28T04:06:26","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T04:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2014-01-06T17:34:33","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T17:34:33","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"Short Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Type-Writer Are You?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKeys\u201d to saving energy and unlocking your writing skills
\n<\/i>may lie in the old fashioned, low-tech past.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"DSCF0176[1]\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Does global warming get you steamed when you’re trying to write the great American novel? Does the rising cost of energy tire you out? There is a way you can take back some control and improve your writing skills at the same time. This technique for putting words on the page is the most energy efficient and won\u2019t require you to learn new software. In fact, it\u2019s a throwback to the beginning of the last century and earlier. I\u2019m talking about writing on the trusty old, manual typewriter. That\u2019s right, the one you or your parents used in high school. The one you probably still have gathering dust in your attic or garage.<\/p>\n

Nothing evokes the romance of writing more than the squat, familiar Remington, Royal, or Smith Corona. Their very names conjure up the era of Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Flannery O\u2019Connor. Michener was fond of his Swiss-made Hermes, with its smooth action and large, easy-to-see keys. Steinbeck took his dog and his portable Underwood on the road and gave us \u201cTravels with Charley.\u201d Hemingway lost his portable on an overnight train in Europe, an incident that spawned a whole sub-genre of fiction. What did they have in common? They did it all on manual typewriters, and there hasn\u2019t been a collection of such illustrious writers since.<\/p>\n

Computers and word processing may have taken over our day-to-day work, but the typewriter is still the symbol of the writing profession. No one gets the same sense of history or the power of the written word from gazing at a computer monitor. It just isn\u2019t the same.<\/p>\n

Over the years, I\u2019ve picked up half-a-dozen different manual typewriters from garage sales and thrift stores, and they all work like champs. I often use a typewriter to compose the first draft of whatever I\u2019m writing, not the computer or even an electric typewriter. Editing on the computer can\u2019t be beat, but sometimes I don\u2019t want to stop the creative flow to edit in the earliest stages of my work. On the other hand, if I\u2019m not putting down words as fast as I can, the difficulties of editing on the manual typewriter force me to concentrate on what I\u2019m going to say before I write it down, and that can\u2019t be bad. It also keeps me from getting distracted by editing before I\u2019m through my first draft. I just keep moving forward, rather than stopping to second-guess what I\u2019ve already written.<\/p>\n

I love the IBM Correcting Selectric, but I\u2019m not always comfortable listening its persistent electric hum. It\u2019s like the IBM is drumming its electronic fingers, waiting for me to put my next thoughts down on the page.<\/p>\n

When I am finally ready to edit, I retype my pages onto the computer. The simple act of doing this gives me a close second read and lets me evaluate what I\u2019ve written as I input. This process becomes a mental combination of editing and<\/span> original writing. Because I\u2019m already familiar with the draft, it\u2019s easier to see what\u2019s working and what isn\u2019t, and I often get better ideas and improve a story or an article as I go. By the time I get everything transferred to the computer, I have a smoother, more polished \u201cfirst\u201d draft than if I had edited while I composed on either the typewriter or the computer.<\/p>\n

And yes, the only energy the typewriter uses is the power of your fingers tapping or pounding, if you prefer, on the keys. The crisp snap of a metal key hitting paper is a thoroughly satisfying sound you just can\u2019t get from a plastic keyboard and a laser printer. The very act of pressing on a manual typewriter key requires you to commit to what you\u2019re going to say. Expressing oneself with the written word has never been the same since typewriters were replaced.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re worried about using too much paper, consider that now-a-days it\u2019s a renewable resource. Most typewriter paper comes from farms, where trees are planted in rows and harvested on a regular schedule.<\/p>\n

To date, I have been able to buy typewriter ribbons at my local office supply store, or on-line if necessary. Ribbons are still manufactured because there are rural areas and whole countries around the globe where electricity is unreliable and computers are too expensive for the average citizen. Also because there are still a few Luddites out there who choose to use a typewriter.<\/p>\n

There are other advantages to using a manual typewriter. No, you can\u2019t surf the web from your Remington, but all that time you spend on-line isn\u2019t helping you get your manuscript pages written, is it? You can\u2019t play solitaire, free cell or any other video game on the typewriter, so think of the hours of productivity you could reclaim on that basis alone.<\/p>\n

Finally, you\u2019ve never heard of a manual typewriter crashing or going off-line, have you? In fact, you can drop a Smith Corona off your kitchen table and it\u2019s more likely to dent the linoleum than damage the typewriter\u2019s sturdy metal sides. What\u2019s more, manual typewriter technology can\u2019t go out of date \u2013 it\u2019s already out of date \u2013 and if it ever stops working, which is unlikely, there are no exotic, toxic metals to dispose of, like there are in your computer. You can recycle the old beast for money or toss it into an ordinary landfill where it will blissfully rust and return itself to the earth, unlike the plastic computer. Or you can stick flowers and photographs on it and use it as a decorative paperweight.<\/p>\n

So, the next time you drop into your local coffee shop to work on the great American novel, dust off that old portable Remington and take it with you instead of your laptop. You won\u2019t have to fight the computer users for an electrical outlet, and your writing time won\u2019t be limited by your battery life.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, all the other would-be writers-in-residence will envy you. After all, you\u2019re following in the footsteps of Hemingway and Steinbeck, not to mention Al Gore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Type-Writer Are You? \u201cKeys\u201d to saving energy and unlocking your writing skills may lie in the old fashioned, low-tech past. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Does global warming get you steamed when you’re trying to write the great American novel? Does the rising cost of energy tire you out? There is a way… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5,"href":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevenmoores.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}