This Is My New Typewriter

Below is a piece that I wrote on my typewriter. My teacher in a creative writing course I took a while back told me to use a typewriter instead of a computer, and he was a smart man, so I listened. Unfortunately a lot of my work involves using a computer, because I write on the internet.

The nice part about a typewriter is that there’s no internet on it, and thus no distractions, no Facebook or Youtube or whatnots. You  plunk down your twenty-pound typewriter at your desk. Now what? There’s no internet. No distractions. Now you have to write.

Also, a typewriter keeps you moving forward. My fatal flaw is rewriting things. I must have 40 unpublished essays/stories where I started writing it, then started rewriting it, then turned everything into a muddle, then gave up. On a typewriter, you can’t go back and delete or cut-and-paste. You just have to keep writing until you get to the end.

Anyway, I highly recommend a typewriter. The typewriter that I wrote this on is a German Torpedo. It’s not a pretty typewriter. I know that by purchasing a typewriter is edging me closer to being a certified hipster (along with my circle-rimmed glasses and being a writer), but this one was made in 1950 or so, and is made of metal and is green. It was so pretty in the shop window.

Get an electric typewriter, is my advice to you. They don’t look cool or hipster, but give it another ten years, and they probably will. Manual typewriters like the one I have result in searing wrist pain. Buy a typewriter that you can actually use, not one that will just sit and collect dust on your pretty hipster shelf. So I wrote this piece on my Torpedo. It is a piece called “Findings.” It's not about anything in particular, just some stuff that's been floating in my head, stuff that I think is "funny" or "witty" that I don't know what to do with. Here it is–