I’ve been working on my second novel these past couple of months, and I’ve decided to write the first draft on a manual typewriter. Besides the coolness factor–I’ll get to that in a moment–there is a practical reason for this: When I type on the computer, it’s hard for me to abstain from editing at the same time I’m writing. I’ll go back and fix typos, rephrase sentences, and generally obsess about getting everything as perfect as possible. But that approach is not compatible with the ideal frame of mind that I’ve found works best for first drafts. When I write a first draft of something–even if it’s just the draft for this blog post, which, yes, I am typing on the Erika–I find that the best way to let creativity flourish and do its thing is to make the little editor in me stand back and let the words flow from my fingers onto the page as they may, in a stream of consciousness unfettered by concerns about typos, grammar, or plot holes. But when I write on the computer, I write and edit at the same time, practically interrupting myself every couple of minutes rather than letting the story flow. Multitasking is anathema to creativity.
Writing in longhand–with pen and paper–is better than on the computer, I wrote a couple of short stories like that, but it’s still too easy for me to go back and cross out words, take notes on the margins, and so on. But on the typewriter, while corrections are possible, they’re really inconvenient to make, so it’s easier for me to “allow” myself not to do them.
This ancient machine also comes with no interruptions, no way to quickly open a tab to check something, no red squiggly line under words, screaming at me to fix them. Despite being considerably louder to type on than a computer, there’s a certain stillness to the experience that is hard to put into words. It feels quiet, even though it’s everything but.
At the same time, a typewriter provides a supremely tactile experience. The fingers don’t just send bits and signals to the computer, they physically cause little levers to strike the ribbon and imprint symbols onto real paper. The rhythmical click-clack of the keys, the ding of the bell, the smooth glide of the carriage, it’s a physical expression of creativity that is easy to fall in love with. I’ve been very productive with my writing lately, and I ascribe a lot of the merit for that to the typewriter.
This particular machine is an Erika Modell 10. It was built in East Germany in 1957, and I bought it for €40 off the local classifieds website. You wouldn’t expect something that came out of the former Eastern Bloc to show such concern for style–or at least I didn’t–but the Erika 10 truly is a great blend of art and mechanical engineering. It’s got gentle, smooth curves. The keys are delicate, but with a snappy feel. The carriage lever has a smooth curved hook that will perfectly fit an index finger. When you need to pop open the top cover to change the ribbon or clean it, it glides open at the press of a lever, instead of having to pry it open.
It’s also packed with features: there’s a color selector, there’s touch control–it controls how hard you have to press the keys–and a tabulator with the ability to set as many custom tab stops as you need. There’s a disentangler, for when you press two keys at the same time and the type bars get entangled. There is even a page-bottom gauge, to know when you’re about to reach the bottom of the paper. To top it all off, it’s a portable, so it came in a travel case. It’s already earned itself a place in the trunk of our car on longer trips.
I’ve touched on this before, when talking about old bicycles, but one always wonders when handling a piece of history like this, what stories would it tell, were it able to speak. What major events did it witness or been part of in the previous owners’ lives, what personal dramas? Who did it belong to, and what did it mean to them?
If there is one thing that took some time getting used to, it’s the QWERTZ layout, which was common on European typewriters of that era. But I got used to it pretty quickly, and besides, as I said, I don’t stop for typos. If the quick brown fox should happen to jump over the layz dog, then so be it. That dog should get off its ass anyway.