The Demon Typewriter

My grandfather Streator and grandmother Maw
in the center of the picture

The Demon Typewriter by J.Q. Rose

Old pictures bring back good memories for me. The picture above is my mother's side of the family with my grandmother Maw in the center. I've been thinking of her lately because this month she would have been 125 years old.

Maw was my first reader and publisher She took the scribbled notebook pages of a story about a girl and her horse and typed up the whole "novel" on her old typewriter.

Antique typewriter
Courtesy of  thaikrit at freedigitalphotos.com

What joy when I saw that type-written manuscript! I knew I wanted to be a writer and I'd have to learn how to type in order to offer readable manuscripts. When I was in high school, I took a typing class. All the machines in the classroom were manual typewriters---except one. That electric typewriter was a demon as far as I was concerned. The letters jumped on the page with just a light touch of the finger and the carriage magically returned to the beginning of the line with no warning.

Using that dang machine to take speed typing tests was gut-wrenching for me because I wanted to ace every test. With only one electric in the class, we drew straws to see who would have to take the test on that scary monster. After practicing all week on a manual, hopping on the electric typewriter was like driving a sports car with an automatic transmission when all I'd driven was a  manual geared beat-up pick-up truck! But not as thrilling. 

The automatic functions played havoc with my word count, not to mention the mistakes caused by my heavy-fingered touch on those quick responding keys. As I look back now, I think the teacher factored in using the electric typewriter for the test instead of the manual. Otherwise I would've flunked the class!

Typing in the 21st Century

In the 21st century, we can type out a manuscript in no time, delete whole paragraphs, auto correct misspellings, move entire scenes to a different chapter in seconds. The only way to change errors was to use the white corrector "paint" to fix typos. We had to dab a bit on the one wrong letter (or many wrong ones) and type over the top making sure the carriage was lined up exactly with the space where the correct letter should be. Any change to a story resulted in re-typing the whole thing.

I remember the stress and churning stomach when trying to type a carbon copy. Absolutely no errors allowed or I'd have to start all over because it was impossible to correct the carbon copy.

I know taking that typing class was probably the best for me because I have used the skill all my life. How did you learn to type? Or can you type?

Share some memories of your typewriter experiences or times with your grandparents. Thanks.