Stepping into the Past: Using Typewriters in 2014

          My father stopped me from pouring orange-juice into a mason jar. Oatmeal still in the microwave, I set the glass and carton down to see what he wanted. He asked me to lift an orange suitcase. I did, and we set it on the counter near my glass.
          We opened to find that his 60-year-old typewriter had returned from repairs, clean and polished, keys waiting to be pressed. The carbon receipt he was given sat against the roller.
          "Type something," Dad said.
          I tapped a key, but nothing showed from the light touch. I pressed on the I key, and a line of ink appeared after a silver hammer thwacked the ribbon.
          Dad raised his arm and nodded.
          My mind focused on the machine, and I forgot about the bowl of oats waiting for me. Letters became words, and at the end of the line, a bell went off. I slid the roller to the right until the bell rang again, and I typed more.
          We finished and closed the lid. Dad loped to his chair in the dark, and I took my breakfast to my room.

          I tried the Smith-Corona typewriter again today when I decided to write my friend Sawyer a letter. Ze (hir preferred, androgynous pronouns are hir and ze) lives in Washington state, specifically forty minutes away from Seattle. The lines of ink coated a once blank sheet of paper. Because of the pressure needed, I had to backspace and hit the letters again, setting some of the words darker.
          My father watched me from his chair, and Mom sat near him, sprawled out on the couch with chips in a bowl. Each time the bell went off, he smiled. She focused on the television. The Waltons were on, a show she never missed. The thwacks of hammers made her and the cat peek over.
          It's an amazing experience being able to use a typewriter. Unlike laptops, which allow authors to vomit ideas out and fix later, typewriters require patience, perfection. One error means stopping, rolling away the lever, and blotting out letters with correction-fluid. Instead, I let the errors, however little there were, come out, and I told my friend how I am still getting used to it.
          The errors, to me, are part of the magic. My parents found the machine in the garage, a mess with sticking keys and scratched parts. With it working and alive, breathing under my fingers, the errors feel right. Hemingway used a typewriter after he drafted in pencil and paper. Other authors, surely, tried their best to create the next masterpiece. When one uses a typewriter, the music of the bells and clicks are just a part of the meticulous work involved.
           I plan to use the typewriter for letters and nonfiction pieces. The reality and age feels right with nonfiction, and using the typewriter, everything feels cultural. California is full of history, and maybe this is a way for me to experience classic California from the comfort of my living room or foyer. I am sure my friend, Sawyer, will be glad to find hir letter done in real, fresh pressed ink.
          The smell of it on my hands, I am told, is pretty great, too.

Speedbumps: A Writer's Nightmare

          The last thing I remember was the plastic mask slipping over my face and the slipping of what felt like a scorpion's tail in my arm. They had asked me to sign one last waiver, and in the reclined chair, one arm hooked to a machine measuring my heart rate, everything went black as they pulled the clipboard away.
          When I woke up, I was sitting in the passenger seat of my mother's Honda Fit, holding a strawberry shake from In n Out with the lid and straw missing, blood on the cup's lip. My head throbbed. Even worse, my cheeks felt punched by the same IV that had been stapled to my arm. I felt happy. I leaned to my driver and told her thanks, that I loved her, and that In n Out was the shit.
         For the next few days, I stayed in bed with pain medicine and antibiotics at the ready. Books were thrown on the floor. I had no interest in Watership Down outside of wanting to hold a rabbit and squeeze it between jaw spasms. My mind was entirely on sleeping off the pain and medicating myself back to sleep. I still wonder if I need a slip of pills just to fall asleep.
          Everything I've worked on until this point has stopped. I have one piece moving around with my beta-readers, but it's due for submission before March. My novel hit 30,000 words a week ago. I posted on Facebook in joy, for it's an achievement I've never thought I would ever reach. Now, it feels like a past vacation that had too many good memories.
          Wisdom teeth or not, there are many reasons why writers pull away from their workload. For me, I can't handle the mix of pain and creation. Creation is birth, and while some argue that birth is pain, this birth is not. For others, the loss of a home or loved one might draw him out of his creative world. It really depends on the person; however, it's not something we surely want to explore.
          My jaws feel tender, but I can sit in a chair and read, now. The words pepper into my mind better than before. I know I should have my glasses on. The steam of a bowl of soup keeps me focused, because my mind is keeping me working for the next spoonful of noodles.
          Work will return next week, and writing will fall back into my life on weekends, days off from homework or studies, maybe. It's hard to say when those days are, but I plan to let them come, and when they do, I'll feel healthy once again.