I saw a clip of this documentary California Typewriter, and it made me curious to see if some people still use one. If you still do, would you share some insight on that?
Not anymore, but I used to until I was able to afford my first computer in 1997. Typewriter, never again. Too much noise. Editing nightmare.
Every time I watch Naked Lunch I get a hankering to buy a vintage typewriter, but then.. what @Rosacrvx said.
I have a typewriter, it was my grandmother's, and I love the sound they make. Unfortunately the s, t, and a all stick. I can make them work, but it's really not worth it just for a sound that makes me ridiculously happy. And the editing thing? Just means you have to be a lot more sure of what you're doing
I love the sound of a typewriter, but I don't have one anymore. Next best thing though: ambient-mixer.com. I mixed together some old typewriter-sounds with the sound of rain and some rumbling thunder, so now I get the feel of a typewriter, but the speed of a computer. And some instant writing weather. For anyone unfamiliar with the website: They have awesome atmosphere soundscapes or whatchumacallit; ready-made or mix it yourself. A ship at sea, in a tavern, Gryffindor common room, ancient Rome, magical library, cosy cottage, space ship engine humming, Steampunk city and a lot more. It's fun and free, but comes with a procrastination warning for nostalgic writers.
I do have two typewriters by family heritage – a pure mechanical one, and a cheap electrical one (one with mechanical levers, not one with those exchangeable discs or globes). As for writing with it: Ugh, no. It's so clunky. I would rather go back and write longhand with a pencil (not even a mechanical one, a real lead pencil. My preferred ones are the thick triangular Faber-Castells), and then type into a computer.
I thought about using a typewriter, because I also love the sound they make. But I realized for reasons already mentioned that it wouldn't really be worth it just for the novelty. Would rather write it out by hand, which I sometimes still do. However, I do have a mechanical keyboard. They're much louder and have more of a satisfying sound than membrane keyboards. To be fair though, I bought mine because mechanical keyboards have a faster response time, which is good for video games. Didn't buy it for the sound.
There's a mobile app called "Hanx Writer", inspired by, promoted and named after actor Tom Hanks, that's essentially a text editor using sound and graphics of old typewriters. It also puts old mechanical typewriter sounds and graphics on the touch keyboard of your phone or tablet... (it's a bit of a rip-off as you have to buy extra typewriters). Tom Hanks collects old typewriters.
Had my mom not given mine away (yeah, still upset about that), I'd probably use it occasionally for things where I want to write at a different pace, or to force myself to not edit as I go. I've considered buying one on Ebay or Etsy, but the prices for what I want are really up there...especially when one considers how much it will cost to ship to the West Coast.
Oh!, the first time I wrote a text on a computer and realised I could erase and insert words, entire lines, entire paragraphs, without making a mess! That was akin to another type of satisfaction I'll leave you guys to guess... And it wasn't fiction or anything, it was just some text. Probably my résumé. I remember it was one of the first things I wrote on a computer.
Just a reminder that there used to be a specialist job called "typist" just for operating the typewriter that has all died out now. Up until the 1970s, I knew PhD students who had to hire typists for typing up their thesis manuscripts (though the typists would do more than just typing. Things like proofreading etc. That's for natural sciences like physics, BTW. I believe in other disciplines like literature, history etc. the workflow remained backwards a lot longer). That's completely gone now – every academic writer types into the PC. (NB: Strictly speaking, we have now people whose jobs are essentially "MS Office Operators", but they're not called that way, and that's a wholly different discussion).
And every large office had a Typing Pool! I don't even think typing is a class anymore, is it? I was sort of in both worlds, in the computer crossover generation. Typing class was the bane of my existence. I failed it twice.
Just the loss of find/replace alone rules out a typewriter for me. I use it all the time if I change the name of a character or place, find unnecessary words I commonly use (really, actually, etc.) and get rid of them, and to find words I know I've misspelled - for example, I alternately spelled one of my MC's name as both Kellan and Kelan throughout the whole first draft and settled on Kelan for the second.
^Yeah, I was gonna say, buy a mechanical keyboard. They make a very satisfying clack clack clack sound similar to typewriters. I didn't know they existed until Bear (husband/partner) bought one for his gaming computer.
Everyone, despite of all the reasons not to use a typewriter, I bought one yesterday. I got it for $10. I know it’s loud, impractical, and out of date, and entirely dependent on ink ribbons. But at the same time I have good reasons for getting it. The biggest one is I want to focus on writing. I don’t know about you, but I’m always tempted to keep clicking on stuff, amazon here, facebook there, and maybe on something else. I want to escape all of those and keep on writing. I guess it’s a discipline thing, but I can’t discipline myself when all the distractions are right in front of me. That’s me. That’s partly the reason why I write longhand as well. It takes ages though. Anyway if ever I find success writing with a typewriter I’ll be sure to talk about it. I’m just a distracted person, I guess.
I have an old Underwood Finger-Flite Champion. My uncle gave it to me when his typewriter repair business transitioned into a computer repair business. I actually find it pretty great for working on. I don't type ridiculously fast to begin with, so I don't have to worry about it slowing me down, ribbons are cheap, reusable and still relatively easy to come across, and it works without electricity, which can be a problem when you spend a lot of time in remote northern communities. It is pretty much specifically a first draft tool when I use it, but it still fits really well into how I write. No, I can't copy-paste, erase, and change formatting and fonts like I can on a computer, but that also means I'm not worrying about that stuff until I actually get to a point where I should be worrying about it. It puts me into the frame of mind where I'm ignoring small mistakes and actually getting a draft completed. It's then that I take that stack of paper and give it a good going over with assorted coloured pens and copy it into a computer so I can do various levels of editing to it. Just remember to clean it regularly and treat it properly. Learning some basic maintenance probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, either. Also, if you want to transfer typed manuscript to your computer relatively fast, use a scanner that has an OCR, or Optical Character Recognition feature, and it'll turn you pages into a .txt file with a far smaller margin of error than anything hand written.
Oh hell... no. Though, when I was younger, my mother had one of those 'word processor' machinea (seriously a machine with just word processor). I used to type my short stories on there. Ah the black screen with the neon-green lettering, I still remember it vividly.
I grew up coveting my father's typewriter. They didn't let me use it because it was for "grown ups" and serious business, but writing was "serious business" for me ever since I learned to write and I really wanted the typewriter. I learned how to typewrite before I was ten. This also meant that I learned how to typewrite really fast (and furious) and it did make a lot of racket. I'd still prefer never go back to it. Nowadays I would rather handwrite than typewrite. I don't miss the sound. Strangely, it didn't annoy me back then, maybe because I didn't know any different. It would annoy me nowadays. But yes, for those of you nostalgic of things past, there is software that recreates the sound, and you can even control the volume. (Something I couldn't control when I was typing away fast and furiously. )
Just saw this the other day and thought of this thread. There's a thing called a USB typewriter, which turns a traditional typewriter into a computer keyboard. The company sells both completed typewriter conversions and conversion kits to install yourself on your own typewriter. https://www.usbtypewriter.com/#gs.xJ_Z4hw
I wanted to try this, but they don't make one specific to my model and to be honest, I really don't want to dick around with something I like using as it is and know I wouldn't be able to fix if I messed anything up. Also, neat as it is, typewriters are missing a lot of keys and functionality that's needed when working with a word processor, so I'd probably need to have a normal keyboard around anyway.
If you're going to use such primitive technology, why not just take a twig and carve your manuscript in the dirt?
Lack of portability. I write on toilet paper, using a chicken feather dipped in my own blood, myself.