Adam G Beaver

I recently ordered a copy of How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors; the book consists of a series of brief essays by well-known authors, in which they pay tribute to their favorite totems. While I wait for the book, I figured that I’d share a photo of my favorite writing totem: my 1960s-vintage Royal Futura 600 typewriter. (Ironic name and everything!)

I’ve always preferred writing on a typewriter; it’s how I wrote before coming to college in 1996, soon after which I joined the laptopped masses. My students look at me with a mix of horror and benusement when I extoll the virtues of my typewriter—for all I know, they probably compose their papers via text messaging software, typing faster with two thumbs than I can with two hands—but I still think that there is something to the plodding and deliberate pace that the typewriter imposes. When I write on my laptop, I’m far too tempted (1) to edit before I’ve finished composing and (2) to paste everything I’ve ever annotated into baggy, long-winded sentences. Writing on my little Futura, on the other hand, I am much more economical, much more thoughtful about my language, and much more aware of the need to keep moving forward with my argument. Editing will have to wait.

I have only one complaint about this little machine—namely, that it’s too heavy to cart home every night from the office, meaning that (sigh) I’ll have to keep writing into the night bathed in the sickly glow of Word.