Category: typewriters

The Interstate

March 20th, 2026

You get a short one today.

I had this one in the tank for a while, as a hastily-scrawled idea chilling in a notebook. I convinced myself to adhere to one of my original missions and just type it up and post it. It’s remarkably easy to fall out of the habit and give in to the voice that suggests it’s not good enough. Listening to that voice is a trap because it eventually convinces you not to put anything down at all. Instead, it demands you think it over ad infinitum.

That might be exactly the kind of perception I can’t trust, come to think of it.

I notice that the ink ribbon is behaving somewhat poorly. Or something up there is: some of the text isn’t as clearly marked as it usually is. I was writing on a different surface, one that wobbled precariously as I hammered away on the keys.

I don’t intend to quit using that surface. It’s bright green and has wheels and two wings that fold out to provide more working surface. I’m under the impression that it’s an old portable typewriter desk. I’m not sure that I am of the correct dimensions to use it properly, but it’s fun all the same.
Links, Networks, Etc…

March 15th, 2026

If you’re wondering about just what exactly Gopher was, this’ll get you pretty close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol). I was young, so I don’t remember too much about the ins and outs of it except for it necessitated a long distance call (so generally don’t use it) and I’d look stuff up once in a while. I guess it’s still alive and kicking but I haven’t interacted with it since we got hooked up with the internet on some unknown date in the early 90s.

It feels anachronistic to put a dedicated “Links” page on anything, these days. I haven’t thought about doing it in years. It almost comes across as too personal, or gauche in some way. Despite that feeling, I think that the way out of awful search results and content designed for ranking is just to create something new ourselves. The capability still exists! It’s arguably easier than it ever has been.

It bears keeping in mind that search engines, content aggregators, social media, and the like all came second. We had to build stuff, first. They exist thanks to us, the general population.
Discomforts

February 22nd, 2026

I requested to see the tooth after all was said and done. I wanted to get some words in before the blessed numbness wore off and I began the slow slog toward feeling normal again.

“You screwed up! Get out of my sight! You’re fired!”

I managed that much, or something like that through biting on a bunch of cotton. The dental professional (of some variety) laughed. I don’t believe they’ve heard a tooth lose its job before.

I still think about what discomforts I may have just gotten used to. I wish they could just be levered up out of my life, in one piece, and summarily disposed of.

Won’t happen, though.

More Typewritten to come. Giving myself permission to fire off any half-baked idea has really opened up new space for topics.
I Saw Someone Set Themselves on Fire Once

February 9th, 2026

He was okay. He went to the hospital and got checked out. The only damage was to his shirt and overalls. If this didn’t have that kind of ending, I wouldn’t have made it sound funny. I wouldn’t have written about it at all!

On a technical note, it turns out that I’m not the best at determining when the typewriter is about to run out of page. I’m sure I was better at it once. The transition between pages is a bit messy, but it’s what I got out of the machine.
December 21st

December 22nd, 2025

The first post in almost two years! I’m not the most proud of either this post (terribly short) or the time I took away from this project (terribly long). In fact, I’m dead sure I could’ve done better but I wanted to break the cycle of doing nothing. Getting anything posted was going to be a victory that I could build on.

As you can see, the scanner I use for this work has some dust and whatnot that came through on the resulting scan. I will not be doing anything about this right now. I presume it’ll work itself out as I generate more of these typewritten pages.

I’m going to go to great pains to get more writing done. Typewriter or otherwise. It seems like a fine thing to do.
A (Very) Short Retrospective of One Year of Typewritten

March 26th, 2024

It’s been a minute since I wrote anything for Typewritten. I’ve had some other writing and non-writing related work that I was doing that sort of took the wind out of the sails for this little project. That and a series of basement improvements meant that my typewriter space had been upended in the name of progress. It’s back now, though.

This isn’t much of a retrospective, though there are some interesting things in there that I’d like to get back to and write up more fully, later. I really, really just wanted to produce something and start this habit back up.

Anyway, the thing that I didn’t anticipate, and the thing that I suspect might be the most important, is how much having the real thing mattered to me versus the abstract version of the thing saved as a representation of a document on a computer somewhere. I can’t articulate just why (yet), but I would encourage anyone reading to try something similar – even if it’s just the ol’ pen and paper combination.

I think, maybe, I’ve had my fill of abstractions for now. Maybe there are enough.
Days, Containers, Excuses

October 28th, 2023

I’m not really satisfied with this one! It has some grammatical errors, it has some typographical errors, and it’s maybe not as fully-formed as I’d like it to be. But, transparently, my main goal at the moment is just to get back in the habit of producing work of any sort again.

Typewritten is a perfectly fine place to do that. When I started it I was aware that I was going to make mistakes and be pretty stubborn about correcting them.
Small Thoughts on Typewriters and Textual Mediums

August 30th, 2023

I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this angle sooner, it seems obvious in retrospect. It’s also a fantastic argument to collect other typewriters and write with their individual idiosyncrasies. I am unlikely to do that to any great extent, though.

Technically, this is a banner day: I did not make any obvious mistakes when writing that and really nailed it on the first try. I don’t believe I made any non-obvious mistakes, either, but then that’s what I would say, by definition.
Fighting Through an Off Day

August 23rd, 2023

Another short one, but it really was an off day. There’s no use in speculating why!

With that in mind, it’s good to have cranked out something anyway. I’ve got several things that I’d like to be working on for Typewritten but this evening wasn’t the time to get cracking on those. Arguably, this was better than letting it drop for a few weeks. Cultivating the habit of writing and posting has demonstrated to me how writing leads to more writing and I’ve really been enjoying that virtuous cycle.
Some Slightly Structured Thoughts on Recommendation Algorithms

August 22nd, 2023

I’ll admit that it’s a weird feeling to be producing work on a typewriter that discusses some pretty modern deployments of technology. But it’s been on my mind especially because I use a typewriter. I distinctly remember being pretty disgusted with the idea that you might write with a machine in mind. It seemed preposterous to do that!

That was borne out of a brief stint I had where I almost did some contract writing. I applied for and was accepted to a company that acted as a go-between for writers and people (businesses, really) that needed some targeted writing done. The stipulations around SEO and keyword use and whatnot ground at me in just the wrong way. Ultimately, I never accepted any jobs and I think I’ve long since been purged from their system.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t do that kind of work. It pays bills, after all.

It is to say that I wonder about those kinds of weird incentives and what kind of ecosystem they’re creating.

Anyway, you can sidestep a lot of that if you write on a typewriter and just absolutely do not care! I don’t know that I can recommend that to everyone in every position, though.

On a technical note, I’m not pleased by how the top page scanned in. But I’m satisfied enough that I’m not going to fight with it and try it twice. If people accept spelling and spacing errors, I bet they’ll accept a slightly off-kilter scan of a page.