"I wanted to rub humanity's face in its own vomit and force it to look in the mirror."

J.G. Ballard
1930 - 2009

productivity via anachronism

Has it really been that long since I posted here last? Time flies when you're recovering from surgery, I suppose. Anyway, I am still not dead, in case anyone was curious.

In the last couple months, I've been trying to solve a problem I've been having with my writing output. You see, I write most easily with a keyboard, but the keyboard I am using to type this post has a flaw, and that flaw is being attached to a big, time-sucking distraction: the internet. The easiest answer to this issue (aside from just canceling my internet service, which isn't going to happen) is to grab one of the dozens of legal pads scattered throughout the house and go sit out on the porch to write everything longhand, but that isn't without its flaws either, the main one being that I grasp pens between my thumb and forefinger like a hamfisted toddler (see picture) which makes my hand cramp up long before I'm done jotting down scenes and ideas.

So, I've been stuck choosing between writing via keyboard (potentially higher output, but with great temptation for distraction) and writing via hand (no distraction, but far less output per writing session), and for the most part I've done both in rotation in the hope that things would even out. Then a few weeks ago lawyer fiancee talked me into accompanying her to an estate sale to both look for decorative things to use in our wedding this summer (which was the main draw for her) and comb through the dead person's house for awesome cheap books (which was how she sold me on the excursion). We ended up leaving that sale with a handful of books, zero wedding decorations, and this $5 answer to all my writing productivity woes:


I wasn't sure why I was buying it at first. I mean, who the hell uses a typewriter these days? Plus, it isn't like that ugly 70s two-tone yellow & brown color scheme is terribly attractive, so it wasn't going to be used as a decoration. But then I tried writing with it one day, and I've been addicted ever since--all the benefits of a keyboard, none of the distraction of an internet connection. Perfect! Typewriter ribbons are still readily available and reasonably priced, so I don't have to worry about this being just a temporary solution.

I guess all I had to do was look for something that, technology-wise, fell squarely between the computer and the pen. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but back when I was planning on becoming an engineer (a plan that lasted until I realized 'round about three dimensional calculus just how much I hated math), my uncle the electrical engineer gave me a framed list of engineering rules to live by as a gift. Even after I switched over to English, I kept hanging it up on the wall in every place I lived because that damn list refused to stop being right about everything, and this time was no exception: "In nature, the optimum is almost always in the middle somewhere. Distrust assertions that the optimum is at an extreme point." Well said, engineering rule list. Well said.

Besides, nothing will make you feel more like a writer than filling a house with typewriter sounds. CLACK CLACK CLACK-CLACK CLACK DIIIINNGGG