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I’m No Ernest Hemingway

William Ogden Haynes

Not long ago, I had the thought that my writing might improve, if I
started using an antique manual typewriter, like many noted authors
of the twentieth century. Mark Twain was allegedly the first to submit
a typewritten manuscript in 1882 using a Sholes and Glidden treadle

machine. Royals were preferred by Ian Fleming, Ernest Hemingway,
Sylvia Plath, Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck and Virginia Woolf.
Remingtons were used by Tennessee Williams, J. D. Salinger and Agatha
Christie. There was a certain romance in the clacking of the keys and the

slamming of the carriage return to move on to the next line. I could see
Ernest Hemingway down in Havana tapping away on his manual typewriter,
drinking rum, going deep sea fishing between chapters. Hemingway, who
often typed standing up with the machine on a bookshelf, finally settled

on his favorite, the Royal Quiet Deluxe. I wanted to buy one just like his.
But then, I remembered that as a student, I learned to type on a manual
typewriter. I recall taking a speed test, placing my fingers on the keys, and
when the teacher said “go,” seeing twenty strikers jump up, becoming

hopelessly entangled with each other. I remembered correcting errors, with
ugly erasures and holes in the paper, and later, with white-out and correction
tape, none of which made the copy look good. I recall blackened fingers from
changing the ribbon and how easily those fingerprints were transferred to the

paper, requiring more erasures. And after all that, you only had one copy. If you
wanted more, there was always the nightmare of carbon paper. Using a manual
typewriter like Hemingway, while romantic, was a deal-breaker for me. On a
manual, cutting and pasting would be a thing of the past, as would saving, sharing,

undoing, collating, fonts, colors, making multiple copies, search/replace and
insertion of graphics into the text. Oh, there are lost files, complicated word
processing programs, power outages and carpal-tunnel syndrome, but it’s still
better than using a manual typewriter. Sometimes, I think of Ernest typing and

retyping pages of his latest manuscript, making marginal notes in longhand
when he no longer had the energy to type the page again, deciding to leave
it to his editors to get the idea. But with all the travails of the typewriter,
I’m sure that he thought it was so much better than a pad and pencil.

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