It really doesn't matter what you call it . . . I've always had a soft spot for old things. Oh, I don't mind modern . . . matter of fact, I like a lot of modern things. But there's just something about sitting down to an old typewriter . . . feeling the steel and ceramic with your fingers . . . watching the letters press up against the ribbon . . . leaving imperfect print on stark white paper. Most typewriters only had two type faces (or fonts): pica and elite
Typing was a required class in high school, and I loved it! Every time I sat down to the typewriter, I felt like an author . . . except that the first thing they made you type was this:
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
"Why?" you ask? Well, because that sentence uses all the letters in the alphabet . . . typing it over and over again trained your fingers to quickly find the keys. In the end, you had to pass a "speed" and "accuracy" test. I made an A in that class.
Authors like Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, and Dr Seuss spent many a night pecking away on typewriters . . . turning out award winning novels! On the flipside, some authors preferred pen and paper: Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokav, and Andre Dubus II to name a few.
This is part of a typewritten letter from Ernest "Papa" Hemingway to someone in his family:
I don't mind writing by hand . . . in fact that's how I typically write my poetry . . . by hand . . . in pencil mostly . . . on scraps of paper . . . until something actually comes together.
