Rough drafts in ink.

Chicago.

Last night, for the first time since early December, I sat down in front of the typewriter again. I only managed to churn out about a page and a half of pure dreck, but it felt good. I think I've moved beyond caring that my fiction writing is - at least on the first pass - rambling streams of junk. For the most part. I like the process of writing more than the final product. Or so I like to think.

For pounding out a rough draft, nothing beats a typewriter. Mine's an Olivetti MS 25 Premier Plus, which is an awfully fancy name for a cheap, plastic, all-manual machine with a tendency to skip spaces and smear red ink into the black. But I like it. It'll work anywhere. It fits, without too much difficulty, on the back of my bike. The clattering of keystrokes, particularly during an intense bout of writing, feels deeply reassuring. And it's far more legible than my dodgy handwriting, doubly so when I'm scribbling as fast as I can.

The best part, though, is its permanence. It's a liability for letters or resumés, when you can't make a mistake, but a rough draft is all mistakes. On a computer, it's far too tempting to edit as you write, deleting words and entire passages, getting nowhere. On the typewriter, you just have to charge forward. There's a hard copy, provided you don't destroy the actual pages, something you can always refer back to.

It's like an old architecture professor used to tell us about sketching. He'd flip out when he saw someone using a pencil, because you never get anywhere with one. The temptation to erase, to fine-tune a line to perfection, is hard to avoid. Nearly impossible for a student. With a pen, you can't erase. You need to work with what you have on the paper. It also teaches you to be more cautious about what you do, but then to do it boldly. It's a simple lesson that I think most of the other students forgot - no one else seems to recall it - but it struck a chord with me.

Now I always sketch with ink.