First Drafting on Typewriter

 While there are some who enjoy trying to do it all on their typewriters, from writing to zine publishing, most people advocate using the typewriter in conjunction with the digital world, not in place of it. In fact, one of the most common themes advocated by typewriter evangelists is the use of typing out first drafts on typewriter rather than on computer. In fact, a member of Albuquerque's ABQwerty Type Writer Society, Woz Delgado Flint, has written and published a book on the topic called "The Distraction Free First Draft: Unplug, forget perfectionism, and write more than ever using a typewriter." 

The reasoning behind all this is simple: some people cannot allow their creative side to produce because they get so bogged down in perfecting what they've just written. From my own experience writing my Linux and Move Down to Mexico books, I have spent so much time obsessing over the first chapter, or even just the first part of a first chapter, that eventually nothing gets down. With a typewriter, you don't have that luxury. You make a mistake, ignore it, or backspace-M-backspace-X it off the paper. Forgot to indent? Forget about it. Scrawl a ¶ (pilcrow) on there in pencil or pen later. Don't like the line you just wrote? Revise it later. That's what second drafts are for. As Woz Flint says about one's initial realization when working (or returning to) type writing: 

"You can no longer instantly backspace and delete. At first this feels foreign, but then you feel free. You’re no longer crippled by perfectionism. You no longer plan to write. You actually write."

Well, I didn't plan on doing an exercise showing this today. It sort of just happened organically, you might say. I was typing out more finger strength building exercises and came to the end of the textbook page. Rather than go on to the next chapter and do some more exercises, I felt in the mood for a free write. And so, inspired by the silly line I had just typed from the book, I just let loose with the first thing that popped in my head, which you can see in the image below at line three, starting with the words Hello, Ellie Mae.

I was then at the end of the page of paper in my Olivetti, but I was sort of enjoying the unplanned odd little story popping from my fingertips, and I was enjoying the feeling of ignoring my typos and missed words and instead, just think-typing out the story, especially having started out with no idea at all and, in fact, no original intention to write a story. I don't do fiction is my usual mantra, but what the heck. So, I thought about what I had written, and then thought about where it might go, and then started in earnest to write the first draft of a story. OK, so the part I had just written above was sort of a first draft, thus making the first part of what follows a second draft. Ah, but so what. You get what I'm getting at and going after. 

So, I moved over to what is now my wife's Royal Safari to continue work since there was a 3/4 blank sheet of paper already in it (and my Olivetti was experiencing the ribbon advance issue I mentioned in a post a day or two ago. At any rate, I wrote a whole story, and here it is:

Part One

Part Two

Second to Final Draft

This odd little story committed to typed and thus paper, I printed it out and then did an OCR scan of it. I then edited it on computer to create the second draft you see below. 

It is worth mentioning, however, that once you get back into word processing mode in MS Word or whatever you use, you, at least most people, are no longer working on a second draft in the traditional sense. Traditionally, you would write a messy and disjointed first draft, then writer a cleaned up second draft, and then a final, ready-to-publish, third or final, draft. In the word processing mental mode, that second draft usually becomes a continual revision. Each paragraph is going through several draft steps, so it becomes a second-through-final draft on the fly sort of endeavor. Definitely different from the way things used to be when all phases were done on typewriter. 

At any rate, here is the final product"

The Next Big Thing

Agnes got out of her car after the long drive and walked into the store to get something to drink. "Hey Agnes," the clerk shouted. "What are you doing out here in Bakersfield?" 

Agnes blanched, not having expected to run into anyone she knew so far from home, least of all her 11th grade history teacher (and especially not while he was moonlighting at a convenience store in Bakersfield, California). She stumbled as she looked for something to reply. “Uh, oh, yeah, just out here with my sister looking for bargains,” is the best she could manage. 

It was a pathetic excuse, and unconvincingly delivered, but it was the first thing that popped into her head, and thus the first thing out of her mouth. The phrase was pretty much etched into her mind due to her dad saying it so often when she was a kid, though she never knew why he did. And of course, it was a lie. She was not in Bakersfield to shop, and she definitely was not there with her sister. She didn't even have a sister, but fortunately, Mr. Russell, the moonlighting history teacher, didn't know that. At least, she didn't think he did.

No, Agnes was there for a far different reason. Nothing nefarious or even unsavory had brought her out to the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley that Saturday morning. Far from it. And yet, she was there to engage in something that she desperately wanted to keep her friends back home in the Glendale. She knew that what she was doing there in Bakersfield would prove to be an act of social suicide if word got out back home. After all, what could be more ruining to a popular 17-year-old city girl’s reputation than for word to get out that she had been spending her Saturday mornings. . . square dancing. 

You see, for the past seven months, Agnes had been driving 106 miles every Saturday morning to Bakersfield, CA, to take square dancing classes. Sure, she could have taken classes closer to home, in Tujunga, for example, but there was just too much chance of being found out if that close to home. No, the further away she studied, the better she thought, even if it meant more work and, given the price of gasoline, more expense. She had to keep this business hush hush. She couldn’t even tell her parents about what she was up to lest they slip up at some point, inadvertently spilling the beans to one of her friends by telling a caller something like, “Oh, no, honey. Sorry you missed her. She’s at her square dance lesson.” Oops. 

No, Agnes could not take any chances. 

She had decided to take up square dancing one day while at her friend Anna’s house for a barbecue. Anna’s elder brother, having just returned from the “That Bakersfield Sound Music Fest” in Bakersfield, was full of swagger. He walked up to where they were sitting, plunked his bottle of Sapporo beer on the table in front of them, stomped his cowboy booted foot up on the bench so they could get a good look at its green lizard skin leather, and proclaimed with great conviction and much in the way of forceful gesticulation: "Square dance! That’s the next big thing! It's going to make a big comeback, and if you want to be in on it at the beginning, now is the time to learn!” 

“Square dance? Are you nuts?” Anna replied, rolling her eyes in disbelief and dismissal. 

“Yes, square dance! Mark my words, little sister, it’s the next big thing! Get out in front of it and lead the pack, man!” Turning to Anna, he added, "You to, sister's friend! Get on board and lead the horde!" He then picked up his beer and walked away.

Anna just moaned and mocked him. “It’s the next big thing! Haha. Yeah, right.” Agnes broke into laughter and added her own mocking impression, “Get on board and lead the horde!” The two of them were practically read to roll on the floor laughing, but the fact that he was still withing eyeshot kept their reaction a bit more subdued.

Yes, it did seem a ridiculous pronouncement. Square dance? And this coming from a guy who had just come back from the That Bakersfield Sound Fest, which was not exactly a finger-on-the-pulse-of-a-generation sort of happening. And yet at the same time, Agnes wondered if he might be onto something. After all, he had been in an alternative band, the Bookkeepers, during his college days, and alternative music people were usually good at spotting new trends in their proto-infancy, or so she had heard. 

If square dance was going to be the next big thing, she had better learn how to do it while no one was yet paying attention. That way if and when it hit, she would be on the cutting edge - a natural leader thus guaranteed to lead the pack and enjoy continued popularity. Wow. The thought made her feel like a supercharged machine. And so, she started taking lessons, albeit on the sly. Square dancing was, after all, still seen as fashionable as clogging in her teenage urbanite circle.

*****

Agnes grabbed two bottles of water from one of the refrigerators at the back of the store and headed to the counter to pay. 

"Two bottles? You must be thirsty!" Mr. Russell chuckled.

"Nah, just one for me and one for my sister," Agnes nervously replied.

"Oh yeah, one for your sister," he snickered back. “Well, you two have a good time shopping. Hope you find some bargains.”

She was a bit shaken by his response. She didn't like how he seemed to stress the words sister and two. It was as if he knew she was lying, that he was onto her. She picked up her two bottles of water, said, "See ya, Mr. Russell," and rushed out the door, happy to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Agnes drove off to her dance class, where she spent the next couple of hours happily swinging her partners and do si doting until it was time to head home. As soon as she got in her car and started her drive, however, that endorphin rush she had experienced while dancing had been replaced by a feeling of dread. “Why did Mr. Russell act so oddly just then,” she wondered. She ran through a whole list of possibilities in head, with each possibility worse than the one before, and she continued to catastrophize all the way home, and all of the next day.  

She continued worrying throughout the night, suffering a most restless sleep and an unusually early wake up come Monday morning. Her mom had put out some toast and eggs for her for breakfast, but she just couldn't eat. All she could do was worry that Mr. Russell had let someone know that he had seen her in Bakersfield, and that he somehow found out what she was doing there and spilled the beans. She imagined her friends and classmates laughing behind her back and snubbing her during breaks and lunch. She imagined sitting alone at home after home eating Cheetos while watching reruns of Dawson's Creek. . . for the rest of her life. Her thoughts had taken a rather distracted, dramatic turn.
   
When she got to school, however, her mood began to improve. Everything seemed normal. Her friends were friendly as always, no one was laughing at her, and no one mentioned Bakersfield, as they never do. Period after period passed without incident. By the time lunch came around, she was completely relaxed and worry free. She just had two more periods to go.

After the lunch bell rang and the students started making their ways to their fifth period classes, Agnes saw Mr. Russell walking directly toward her. She began to panic a little, not knowing what to expect - afraid he might say something. As it turned out, he looked at her blankly, nodding his head and saying “hey,” before then making his way to his next class as if nothing had happened. . . as if they had not run into each other in Bakersfield just two days before. 

Agnes felt so relieved, now convinced, as she was, that all was going to be OK. And that’s when it hit her! “Oh, how dumb I’ve been! Of course, he doesn’t want to let on that he ran into me! He doesn’t want anyone to know he is working out there in a piddly little gas station convenience store. He’s got his own image to worry about. Haha!”  

Yes, she had worried so much for nothing, she realized. All would be OK. She could finish out the school year without being found out, without being ostracized. She would be able to go to the prom and maybe get elected homecoming princess again. She would not end the year graduating as a social pariah, invited to a single graduation party. She would retain her popularity and all that came with it. She felt the urge to yell "Weee!" like Liesl at the end of that sixteen going on Seventeen number in Sound of Music but held back so as not to look as if she were off her head.

Sixth Period was Band, her favorite class of the day. Mrs. Hoffrichter, the teacher, entered the room from her little office in the storage room a minute or two after the bell rang. “OK, ja, OK, quiet down, meine Lieblinge, settle down," she said in her eternally thick German accent. She savored a sip or two of her coffee as the students did as she had asked, after which she began passing out the music for the numbers they would be practicing that day: Stars and Stripes Forever and Theme from Rocky. The students pulled their instruments from their cases and began warming up, resulting in a cacophony of seemingly unrelated and random snippets of music being played at the same time. Gradually, with one student taking the next's lead, they were mostly warming up to the first few bars of the song Tusk. The students obviously had a sense of humor.

 Agnes pulled her tuba out its enormous case and looked admiringly at it. She pressed her lips to the mouthpiece and started playing, not those bars of Tusk that the others were playing, but rather the first few bars of the theme from Rocky, or at least a deep bassy version thereof. She pulled her lips away from the mouthpiece and smiled. She was feeling triumphant. 

"Man, being popular is hard work,” she chortled quietly to herself.

Yes, life was indeed good, and it was going to get better. Swing your partner, do si do.

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Reflection

As I mentioned earlier, I was already familiar with the notion that you write more freely if you strive to write, letting it flow, without worrying about corrections or perfection. This little exercise confirmed that. It also showed me that being at a different sort of writing machine can have a great impact on what you write, and that the simple act of reading something in your own hands, something you have just written, allows you to see, interact, and imagine in ways that are far different from what you do in the word processing world. Sure, I don't sit around writing short stories in general (not at all, actually), but it was good fun to follow where my words were leading me.