4 Reasons to Compose Thoughts With a Typewriter: A First Draft
Reason #1. THERE'S NO GOING BACK
What you put through a typewriter in the form of ideas set to word, that's what you get. That means little time to doubt yourself.
REASON #2. PURE FOCUS.
You really can't do anything but write on a type writer.
You can't check your email. You can't search and doomscroll social media.
You can't read the news. You can only write. How liberating it is to be
so limited of options.
REASON #3. SEEING YOUR WORDS ON A PAGE IS THE ULTIMATE FEELING
OF USEFULNESS.
I can't put my finger on it, but there is satisfying about creating material output something immensely or a physical representation of it anyway. When you can sit back on your couch or at your kitchen table or desk and read back through words you
physically placed on that paper, it just feels good. I don't how else to put it.
REASON #4. TYPEWRITERS FORCE YOU TO WORK IN DRAFTS.
Not too many of us work in drafts anymore. We seem to always polish the same stone to perfection. This means that we try to get there as fast as we can. Typewriters let you or even encourage bad first drafts This a freedom I've found immensely addicting. This draft can suck That's a-ok. It is only a draft.
But I can always come back to what I thought was lousy before after all. In fact, I find more of "me" in early drafts than I do in the polished stones of later drafts created as I began to lose faith in my voice.
And that's about it. Try a typewriter.