The Potency of the OG Typewriter

Check out this mofo, an incredibly cool gift from my sweet fiance Sylvia. I have a good history with typewriters like this. I wrote my first novel, Bertram’s World, on a manual typewriter. I wasn’t satisfied with it when I was done with it, so I never showed it to anyone or sent it anywhere. There were structural problems that I thought were unfixable, and it didn’t have the ‘flow’ I’d come to recognize as an avid reader. I wrote my second novel on a manual typewriter, too. Mirage was bad, but slightly better. Same thing happened to that one. Never showed it to anyone and eventually, I lost it. Then I wrote Fugitive Crash, I like that one but it still wasn’t good enough. Lost it, too. Then I wrote the first draft of Miracles of Altitude. I was learning, but this one was also no good. I showed that typo-ridden draft to my friend Ben and to my surprise he read the entire thing. After five years of writing, much of it in secret (I wasn’t surrounded by supportive, nurturing voices, something I learned late in life to never, ever tolerate) I had yet to get a single piece across the plate. Then I lost the typewriter itself. When I finally got a new one, almost everyone had a computer. I didn’t, mostly because I didn’t think I could learn how to use one in the privacy of my own experiment. I got a new (to me) manual typewriter and the first thing I wrote on it was a science fiction story entitled Jimson’s Universe. There were oceans of blood and forests of bone involved. I liked it. I felt like I’d made a breakthrough! I’d sent a few short stories out and got standard rejection letters in my self-addressed stamped envelope, but with Jimson I got one of my first personal rejection letter. I framed it, too. I lost it long ago, but I still remember how touchingly frank it was. “Dear Mr. Johnson, This was the most disturbing story I have ever read. Please do not send us anything ever again.” Signed, prominent science fiction editor (I’ll withhold the name). You aren’t supposed to send out short stories to more than one place at a time, but fuck that stupid rule. As luck would have it, my first acceptance letter came the very next week, as I’d sent it to two magazines. “Dear Mr. Johnson, This is the best science horror story I have ever read. I had to read it twice to believe my eyes.” Signed, Kenneth James Crist, Black Petals Magazine. Sale number one, manual typewriter.

I quit writing for years after that, but when I eventually got back to it I wrote the first draft of Tattoo Machine in notebooks I bought at a RiteAid in Santa Monica. Lucky Supreme, too. Miracles went into a computer at one point, though it was lost. The second drafts came when I entered the text into the computer. Then I slowly switched to all computer. I never really found another manual typewriter with good action. Until now. My sweetheart has a degree in jewelry design and one of her hobbies is restoring antique sewing machines. She was able to identify a good manual typewriter and tune it up. We’re waiting on the new ribbon as this one is a little worn, but this thing snaps. It hails from 1917, and the attractive round keys are yellowed with time. I have two projects I have to begin on in the first week of January and for the first time in a long time, I’m going to peck it out old school. I know the medium makes a difference. I don’t know exactly what that is, and I bet it changes over time, but this is gonna be… New again. Check out the cool cover from Spring, 2004. That’s my main character Eneseph in her shipsuit, on the trail of a madman who made a meat planet. Haha! The full typewriter is below that.

Look at the cool keys! Writing is one of my very favorite things in life. Such a nice gift.