Tag: writing

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.
The Same Space

August 21st, 2023

A bit of a shorter one again. I said what I set out to say, though, and that’s good. Then there is always this bit talking about what I just talked about. Writing always seems to lead to more writing.

I’m usually writing advice that I’d want to hear myself. Some of it seems to resonate, and that’s a fine feeling.

On a technical note, I sure seem to be improving my accuracy with the typewriter. Turns out familiarity with a tool helps. There are a couple mechanical errors up there, but fewer than usual.
Give Yourself Permission

August 20th, 2023

If you need someone else’s permission, you have mine. I’ll sign the slip. Go make a bunch of low-stakes errors and learn from them.

I should probably stress the “low-stakes” part.

The typewritten work continues to pile up, little by little, and it’s really invigorated my desire to write. Even if it doesn’t originate on the typewriter. I really don’t want to romanticize it or apply special characteristics to it – it’s just a thing that helps put letters on paper. It’s kind of a neat thing, though, and it keeps me coming back. I think that latter part is the most helpful, and it isn’t unique to the machine.
Gravity, Drafts, etc…

August 19th, 2023

I’m not as distractible as I made myself sound up there. I decided to embellish a little for the sake of the post. Mostly by accident, because once I had written that, the options were either to immediately explain it away, run with it a little, or grab an entirely new sheet of paper. One sounded too wasteful and the other struck me as just an awful way to write. I chose to run with it a little.

The bits about the typewriter really working in to my process and facilitating a lot of work, though, are true. I really started off exploring the machines to see if there was any value at all in this era of ubiquitous computers. It was kicked off by a book, The Typewriter Revolution, and I decided to see if I might be able to maintain a blog with various goals in mind. It turns out that writing is writing, and I’ve been slowly expanding what I work on. These are exciting times.

Technically, I’m displeased by some of the sentence structure and word choice in the typewritten document up there. Can’t change it now – it’s inked! Maybe some of these will be rewritten as actual text posts at some point in the future and I’ll have all the editing capacity I desire at that time.
Write It Anyway

August 7th, 2023

It’s probably good advice that I will continue heeding.

This might be the most error-free document I’ve cranked out so far. That’s pretty exciting. I haven’t got any idea what happened with the “W” that starts a new paragraph up there, that one got a bit wild. I learned not to play too fast and loose with the margins shortly thereafter. Then I just had a few accidental key mashes, as one does.

That after-the-fact analysis is perhaps interesting only to me, but it’ll be the only place I really have a record of fewer mistakes over time. I am noticing that the improvement there is carrying over to computer keyboards. I’ve always been a bit of a fast typist but the “Backspace” key gets unreal mileage because I’m occasionally wildly inaccurate. Ironing that out won’t really convey a ton of benefits but it’ll be neat and that’s all that really matters.