When I was a young person, my parents bought me a typewriter.\u00a0 It wasn’t because they had nothing to do. I was diagnosed with disgraphia. Which is to say, my brain and my fingertips don’t get along.\u00a0 Fine motor control is painful (literally) after a short time and degrades further. On the other hand, no matter what, the short movements required to type do not trigger the same fatigue.<\/p>\n
My parents were not rich.\u00a0 So they brought home a typewriter which technically met all the requirements for being a typewriter. Which is to say, it had keys, ink, and keys which when depressed, would cause a letter to appear.<\/p>\n
It was completely manual.<\/p>\n
Not just the action of the key strokes – we’re talking everything. Carriage return? Manual. Line advance? Manual.\u00a0 And it had a bell that dinged as I hit the return, letting me know it had returned to the start of the line.\u00a0 For those of you who have never used a manual typewriter, it’s sort of like a computer keyboard. Except that it is the force with which one strikes the keys that lifts the punch and raises the ribbon.<\/p>\n
All one has to do is strike the keys with sufficient force.\u00a0 Sufficient force in this case would be enough pressure to drive a ten penny nail into hardened oak. So I learned to type. I learned to type hard<\/em>.\u00a0 And in time, I learned to type fast<\/em>.<\/p>\n Not because I thought I might one day be a writer. More because I wanted to get my homework done, and the fastest way to get it done was by typing. To this day, I carry the scars of my beginnings. One or two spaces after the full stop?\u00a0 Two. My brain knows better. In a world of truetype fonts with kerned letters, I only need one space. My id inserts the second stubornly.<\/p>\n And I’m on my third keyboard for my laptop. I still strike the keys like every blow is engraving in stone.\u00a0 I love my surface RT but using the touch cover hurts – there’s no travel in the keys.\u00a0 A few weeks ago, I saw an IBM selectric in a thrift store.\u00a0 The owners gladly let me power it on, despite the fact that it drew enough electricity to power a small city.\u00a0 When I clicked the on switch (labeled, properly, 0 and 1), it threw forth a hum that fills my soul to this day.<\/p>\n The sound of a typewriter waiting to throw those keys for me. The sound of a machine which could let me burst the stories in my soul onto paper. Also, if you accidentally touched the ribbon and a key at the same time, you only did that once. Those keys would leave an imprint on your finger.<\/p>\n I almost bought the typewriter, but my kids would never use it.\u00a0 And I’ve grown so used to not having to use white-out to make corrections in my manuscripts.\u00a0 I have a writer friend who still writes with pen and paper, then types her manuscript.\u00a0 She says it makes her choose her words with care.\u00a0 What is done cannot be easily undone. I understand, but when I listen to that ready hum of the typewriter, and the clatter of keys punching the letters in ink, I think there’s another reason.<\/p>\n She likes to hear it sing.\u00a0 I know I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was a young person, my parents bought me a typewriter.\u00a0 It wasn’t because they had nothing to do. I was diagnosed with disgraphia.…<\/p>\n