I discussed a little bit in a previous article about my disability. Things are improving, though slowly. I am able to use a computer in about 15 minute chunks, but get tired after about 3 or 4 of those chunks. Going back to professional-level software engineering seems like it’s a long way away. I do have an e-ink monitor that I can use for word-processing.
I now have a Hermes Baby typewriter which is more usable than the Royal Classic. I have been fleshing some ideas out on the typewriter. It is a useful tool for “prototyping” bits of prose. There are some quirks, for instance, the keyboard layout is different from the standard American keyboard. I end up typing semicolons sometimes when I meant to type a period.
I imagine traveling with this typewriter, with the typewriter fitting nicely into my checked baggage. I will admit, This dream of traveling with a typewriter was an idea partly inspired by some queries on Chat-GPT. I could also take the typewriter on a train ride, blissfully clicking away as the scenery of the Canadian Rockies goes by the windows. There are definitely more imagined travels than I think I can afford, time-wise and budget-wise.
Editing these hitherto unwritten travelogues would be difficult if the typewriter was my only tool. To edit I would have to retype long passages and possibly the whole piece of whatever I was writing. This was how writing was done in the time before electronics, possibly with the assistance of someone more adept at typing and paid to do the task.
However, as one piece of the writing workflow, the clickety-clack typewriter has advantages. First is the clarity and simplicity – it is free of digital noise, free of informational noise and free of ads and email, widget, buttons, menus and pop-up ads. There is also a rhythm to the sounds that complements my thoughts, the quiet is punctuated by the keys striking the page. This sets the beat and rhythm for the writing. The page is my tablet and I physically manipulate the forces of physics to pound an impression of a letter on to the page. Each letter is struck onto the paper by the force of my fingers. There is a clarity in how this happens as I can see the type levers and the ink ribbon and after some fussing with the typewriter there is the residue of the ink on my fingers.
On the unedited pages, the typos, ill-formed sentences and half formed ideas exist peacefully besides the occasional phrase that soars out of the letters into the beauty of a half formed sculpture, the words slowly forming art where before there was only a blank page and a ribbon of ink. The typos and ill-formed phrases can exist side by side with the thoughts that have been refined. They are equal members, equal objects even though they lack encapsulation. They are formless but equal citizens in the land of the typewritten page. The words might start to fly off the page in a maelstrom of cognitive fury or the words may come piece by piece, slowly crafted bit by bit, each thought painstakingly crafted like a Renaissance sculpture. The typewriter is very well suited to stream-of-consciousness writing, where there is limited allowance to go back and re-think and edit a piece of writing.
The typewriter produces a feeling of peace and serenity. It gives an escape from the flashing lights and endless scroll, the constant advertising and the algorithm finely tuned to annoy me. The pauses of the typewriter clickety-clack mesh with my mind alternately thinking and pausing, then creating the words letter by letter.
I feel this joy is similar to the feeling of switching gears on a bike, driving a car with a manual transmission or roasting and grinding coffee beans which is the feeling of being just a little bit closer to nature. But in the long term, don’t we sometimes want the conveniences? Do we want to roast coffee weekly and grind and brew each cup of coffee individually so we can always and continuously enjoy our own workmanship? I enjoy a camping trip and being close to nature, but I also like a luxury hotel room with a fridge and swimming pool on other trips.
Although I appreciate the typewriter and it’s rhythms, I also like the convenience of word processing software and how it makes it easier to edit. Sometime in the discussion of artificial intelligence, it’s easy to forget that the tools for writing have been evolving for a really long time. Even the fountain pen and mechanical pencil were improvement over the table and stone chisel. The art of calligraphy survived the Information Age. If an artist wants to practice and do calligraphy, they can still do it, but I imagine the pay rates for professional calligraphers and scribes have fallen in the last few decades. After word processing software came spell checking, grammar checking and autosuggest capabilities. These technologies made the writer’s job easier.
Isn’t artificial intelligence just another tool to put in the writer’s tool kit? I recognize the tone and lack of personality of Chat-GPT and other tools. They sound sterile but can be an aid to a writer. It can be used to generate ideas and make itineraries for my imagined trips. It can check grammar, it does a decent job of reading my typewritten pages and transcribing them. Strangely enough, for this essay, I read some of my typewritten pages and retyped them into word-processing software using my laptop. Writers, let’s not be total snobs. Musicians have been using artificial tones and rhythms to build whole new genres of music, such as techno and EDM.
I haven’t given up on Chat-GPT or other artificial intelligence tools to enhance and motivate my writing, but I feel like it’s responses feel canned and well….a little artificial. At the same time, I’m not giving up my Hermes Baby typewriter for adoption.