Typewriter Back

 When I went to live with an aunt just after graduating high school, I was a penniless student. It was a time when the classiest piece of educational electronics to be found, was a manual typewriter. Aunt Margaret used a typewriter as part of her comptometer job (look that one up) and she had an old portable.While on a student summer break, I decided to learn how to type. There was a manual that I followed and hammered away until I became proficient enough. No speed typing for me. In those days, there was no educational help for kids. If you needed money, you worked for it and in my socio-economic state, I didn't even think of asking my parents. They paid my board and that was it. I worked after school in a sign painting shop. The owner did minimum wage for students at about a dollar an hour and that made buying clothes or shoes a luxury, long term saving program. There were no credit cards. Stress didn't work, it just took up time needed for other things. I learned to type and loved being able to bash off letters and essays for school. What it forced one to do, was spell without errors. The dictionary didn't leave the typewriter's side. Your writing had to be perfect and if you made a mistake you either whited it out or tried to erase it. A mess occurred. You didn't make mistakes. I had no one to whine at for sympathy. In spite of all that, our youthful days were happy, free and uncluttered.  If you erred you lived with it. Today, at my grand age, I decided, even with a computer and a bunch of other electronic wonders, to get back to literary realities and write, as I call it, "clean". I found a manual typewriter. My favorite author, Nelson DeMille, a best seller, uses pen on paper. He's a man who earns his money because he's excellent at fiction and adventure. He does stories that entertain. To me, that's the key. It's not about whining and wailing to fix whatever, which, in books, seems to be the trend these days. He writes with crusty humour and skill. He inspires me. My new, old, but working, typewriter will need spools of messy ink to use in the machine and perhaps it'll be noisy, but it's real. I won't be able to depend on instant help such as spell check and grammatical hint, page settings or instant research. It will be discipline all down the line. Most writers if you look it up, have teams who do their research and if they are popular, no matter how silly their tales are, they get the stuff printed based on their names alone.  AI coming up will be the final step to putting our human brain cells into hibernation. Students, some,  already pay to cheat and let someone else do their essays and papers. They can go online and buy them while they run down to the nearest gym or student pub for fun. Or maybe go shopping for the latest coloured sneakers. Mom and Dad take care of the bills. A manual typewriter, are you kidding? Nope. It can be a writer's discipline as is using mere  pen and paper. You are forced to use skills that might currently be asleep, ones you forgot you had. Your creativity has to awaken, and focus becomes essential. Writing, be it business or otherwise, can't be faked because you and the body you are in, need to wake up and go to work. Not your computer or phone. You can't wing creativity and you certainly can't buy it when you're out in the real world with real people who can spot a fake a mile off. A manual typewriter forces the mind to get back to work and works your talent and energy with every punch of a key. Dare to try it.