Choosing a Typewriter for Writers<br /> by [[Joe Van Cleave]]

Manual typewriters for writers with a focus on machines made without needing to tinker/repair them.

Joe primarily focuses on typewriters he actually has in his personal collection more than other potential great machines. Having been collecting for his particular purpose for a long time, he's got a pretty tight set of good recommendations.

He's also got some good advice here about how to go about finding a machine and using professional typewriter shops to do so.

Electric typebar typewriters with more tolerance for poor technique.

IBM Selectrics, maintenance intensive, need carbon replacement film.

Printwheel/Daisy Wheel typewriters. Brother, Nakajima, Swintec (components made by Nakajima),

Ultra portable typewriters

• Royal / Silver Seiko typewriter - no tabs
• Olympia Splendid 33, 66, 99 - no tabs the 33 is monochrome

Portables

• Smith-Corona 5 Series
• Olympia SM series: SM1 - SM9
• Hermes 3000 series (overpriced on the used market)

Standards

Big and don't come with a case; will last nearly forever<br /> - Underwood 5<br /> - Royal standards, especially those that came after the 10

Typebar Electrics

• Olympia Reporter (Nakajima in Japan); designed in 80s for journalists
• Royal Saturn (Silver-Seiko) one of the quietest out there; uses 9/16" ribbon; bichrome with tabs,
• Smith-Corona Electric - first portable electric to hit the market.
• IBM Selectric (71; manual correction)

Daisywheel typewriters

• Brother
• RaRo has new Daisy wheels
• delay between keypress and print

Hot Take: Academic writing has taken on a gatekeeping quality recently. Bafflegab abounds. The jargon lends itself not to precision and clarity, but obfuscation.

BYOK Review<br /> by [[Joe Van Cleave]] on YouTube

A 12-Year-Old Folded Newspapers and Read Dan Bernstein's Column; Now He's Naming a Writing Room After Him<br /> by [[Justin Pardee]]<br /> accessed on 2026-02-20T09:31:07

This piece does not look at cognitivedebt where I saw it mentioned most (i.e. around the effect of vibecoding), it looks at using LLMs in writing (essays)

So when it comes creative writing, Its all about coming up with the idea and structure of your idea. that's what I'm understanding for what I'm reading.

reply to u/Yiqu at https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1r08q2i/buying_a_first_typewriter_for_writing/

The first three articles you'll find under https://boffosocko.com/research/typewriter-collection/#Typewriter%20Market will give you a quick crash course about what to consider and look out for in your search.

If you want to get to work, your best bet (and honestly the best value) is to get something from a repair shop that is serviced and ready to go. In the US this means a budget range typically from US$300-$600, or perhaps slightly more if they've recovered the platen which will improve your experience. Prices dramatically in excess of this often include a lot more custom work or less common typefaces which don't necessarily improve your performance (or are people selling typewriters who have less of an idea than you do about typewriters.)

Many hobbyists here may say to get something cheap that "works", but the amount of time and knowledge you have to scaffold to do that is worth a lot of writing time, and often still requires a lot of cleaning, restoration, and potential tinkering which is even more onerous when you just want to get to writing.

In case you haven't found them, some great resources on leveraging typewriters as distraction-free writing devices:

• Flint, Woz Delgado. 2023. The Distraction-Free First Draft. One Idea Press. https://www.oneideapress.com/product-page/the-distraction-free-first-draft.
• Joe Van Cleave: https://www.youtube.com/@Joe_VanCleave
• Damon DiMarco: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMJ2zbs0bvcjaTYx5zV52sw

And if you need some serious distraction free advice, since it's hiding as deep knowledge amongst a handful of serious collectors/writers, the bigger your (standard) machine, the more visual space it takes up as you're writing and subtly helps your concentration. Similarly placing it in front of a wall (and not a window) helps a lot too.

blogging as sense of wonder

blogging as being comfortable with not knowing, holding questions. This comes close to writing as thinking itself.

Harold used his blog as source for creating ebooks on diff topics. #idea Vgl jaarboeken v blogarchief

Harold is nearing the end of his working life, what does it mean for his blogging? If it is a signboard more, or a professional writing outlet, then yes it may fall away. But if it is your primary space for expression, whatever the topic then the blog can morph with it, no?

the groups are used for sharing drafts, meaning the blog contains more 'finished' writing in contrast. Imo this means the blog is less about wonder, curiosty and more about performance / presentation?

question how to keep blog as authentic space, for sensemaking/learning. And if it changes writing in the context of ai slop

writing and blogging as sensemaking, as learning

Typewriter-Adjacent Writing Devices<br /> by [[Joe Van Cleave]] on YouTube<br /> accessed on 2026-02-02T09:17:37

Typewriter-like writing devices: - Privacy - security - autonomy

Freewrite (fka Hemingwriter)

• Smarttypewriter $699
  • Hemingway Signature $1000+
  • Valentine $999
• Traveler: clamshell device, smaller $549
• Alpha $349
• Alpha Cosmic $499 with colorful keys
• Freewrite Plus subscription service

Remarkable

• cloud storage or subscription
• Starts around $400-600+

Pomera

• $499

Zerowriter

-$250 - open source, SD card, customizable keys - raspberry pi based

Supernote

• tablet
• $329-500

BYOK

• Kickstarter; shipping now.

for - AI - status - writing most of the code at Anthropic

Typewriter Video Series Episode 37: AlphaSmart Neo<br /> by [[Joe Van Cleave]]<br /> accessed on 2026-01-26T12:21:40

Note the shifts in potential audience(s) of early writing.

Is there stronger evidence that this form of permanent writing to an audience of gods was being done? Sources?

the shift from proto-cuneiform to early dynastic cuneiform showed greater complexity, but was still a variation of shorthand which didn't attempt to express all parts of speech as converted from spoken language. Verbs weren't always appropriately conjugated.

An index card masterclass to kick start your writing.<br /> by [[Justin Hill]] on YouTube<br /> accessed on 2026-01-14T09:17:56

Justin Hill, a long form writer, uses index cards in his writing for taking notes, inspiration/prompts, as well as for outlining/organizing the plot of his material.

I've probably read this post half a dozen times over the last 10 years.

This is the first time that I've noticed (and—now—am able to appreciate) that this paragraph is deliberately crafted to, in part, have the same effect as what it's actually describing.

original source?

original source?

https://web.archive.org/web/20251226113306/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/26/ai-dark-ages-enlightenment Opinion piece asking if AI is taking on the similar (feudal) role of priests, kings and lords to outsource our decisions to. Leaving the enlightenment behind, and the romanticist invention of the self.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/315733-i-write-because-i-don-t-know-what-i-think-until

original source?

Steinbeck’s 24 Pencil Writing Ritual<br /> by [[Wood & Graphite]] YouTube <br /> accessed on 2025-12-10T08:58:17

John Steinbeck pre-sharpened 24 of his Eberhardt Faber Blackwing 602 pencils in batches to have uninterrupted writing time. When they were all dull, he would batch sharpen them again.

I think this is a good rule of thumb. :P

https://www.reddit.com/r/pencils/comments/p8w070/wooden_pencils_with_red_lead/

Jorge Arango talks about his writing process. He actually co-authored a book on Information Architecture in 2015. This vid more about his latest. uses lots of paper notebooks Mentions 3 (obvious) phases in his non-fiction writing research structuring writing Says all three req diff tools. (he uses Obsidian f research)

Stage 1 research, vague idea about what topic, (s paper notebooks, index/sequence them) His book duly noted is on this phase.

Stage 2 structuring. mistake to go directly to writing. (vgl [[A System for Writing by Bob Doto]] ) Mentions author Robert Caro who had book structure on his wall story book like, vgl what I do when writing reports w wall of post its for structure. Limitation is size of wall. But physcial movement helpt. He does this type of wall in [[Tinderbox]] !!!! canvas, with the sticky notes having metadata. His chapter and heading structure emerges from it! Prevents getting lost in the details. Shows him what is missing too (looping back to research phase sometimes). It's not writing but getting a sense of the narrative flow of the entire thing. Seems like outlining of talks, but a book is bigger and thus the outlining is more filled out with links to material

What question would a reader have entering chapter 2 after reading chapter 1, and go from there. Has opening story/anecdote for each chapter. Mwah. Uses the story board view like how the periodic table suggested the existence of atoms that had not been discovered yet. Dmitri Mendleev.

Stage 3 writing After structuring the writing tools come into play. He used Scrivener, avoiding having a monolithic text. Now Ulysses, in markdown. Uses word count targets in these tools for sections/chapters

set up supportive environments for each pahse structure first but keep flexible, don't make it a linear process, but structure ulnocks the writing swith modalities - walking, free form in [[Tinderbox]] or another tool, to avoid getting stuck.

for - novel - The Inheritor - special quality to the writing

Award-Winning Writer Explains Her Entire Process — Susan Orlean - YouTube<br /> by [[David Perell]]<br /> accessed on 2025-11-05T09:13:24

0:00:38 Susan Orlean uses index cards as part of her process. She's done this for three or four books by October 29, 2025.

She uses her index cards (often in the range of 700) to arrange and re-arrange the material. She uses it to refresh her memory as she's working with it.

Things can be as small as a name of a character. Some are references to longer research documents.

"chunk of thought" (her version of atomic notes)

attention economy [7:59]

Reading one's work out loud is an excellent way of discovering wordings that don't work or which may be boring. [32:45]

For Susan Orlean, editing on a computer as opposed to handwritten or typewritten work, is much easier as it's not as messy and encourages experimentation. [30:45]

One suspects that the words seem less precious or permanent as well.

See Ezra Klein's argument against using ChatGPT for writing even the first draft. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470?i=1000710273359

source? original quote?

neurological study of LLMs on writing and impacts

Learn the concept of value in the context of content creation on HIVE. Learn to engage with individuals and/or communities. See different ways to derive value.

Essential tips for new users on the Hive Blockchain. Understand community etiquette. Avoid plagiarism. Engage meaningfully. Enhance your reputation and rewards.

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Topcomment curation service's weekly report for week 37. With a slight decrease in HP delegations. Topcomment rewards meaningful comments on the Hive platform.

https://www.todlippy.com/writing/interviews/bad-day-black-rock

Happiness is a Warm Typewriter: 10½ Years On, the Story Stays the Same<br /> by [[Robert Messenger]]<br /> accessed on 2025-09-05T11:21:50

The incipit line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bulwer-Lytton

A curation tool for the Hive platform. With feature requests to enhance content discovery. See its practical applications for curating posts in various niches.

Author of the Week is a LeoThreads initiative. Where authors are reselected due to voting issues. Boosting community participation and quality content creation.

Avoiding Internal Typewriter Distractions - YouTube<br /> by [[Joe Van Cleave]] <br /> accessed on 2025-08-28T11:08:56

Typewriter distractions<br /> - troublesome mechanical issues<br /> - need for finger strength - poor imprint

Well-tuned standard typewriters are excellent for minimizing distractions, especially internal ones.

Joe Van Cleave thinks the 5TE Smith-Corona electric typewriters are the best of their class.

Large horizontally oriented typewriter mats can be useful in that they create a buffer zone that covers the carriage movement and helps to prevent one from accidentally putting their beverages in the way of the carriage.

A humorous celebration of the value of quality blogging within the Hive Blogger Ecosystem. Learn that true merit lies in the art of writing rather than superficial metrics or visual content. Content creation is not merely driven by algorithms or financial incentives. But by the integrity and passion of writers dedicated to sharing insightful narratives.

Opinion : AI Writing Disclosures Are a Joke. Here’s How to Improve Them.<br /> by [[Yasha Hartberg]] August 15, 2025

https://typewriterchicago.com/contest

mindr is an open-source R package that converts mind maps to Markdown documents. Easily organize ideas and create structured content for writing posts. It can also generate mind maps from markdown files. A valuable tool for writers and mind map enthusiasts.

Ray Bradbury's Rules to Writing: Don't Think!<br /> accessed on 2025-08-12T09:45:59

"...you must never think at the typewriter, you must feel." —Ray Bradbury

This also cleverly goes against the idea that "writing is thinking". Bradbury frames it as "writing is feeling" or "writing is being."

https://www.facebook.com/groups/artdeco1930/posts/10161193224076561/

Like many, da Vinci didn't publish much from his copious notebooks. He had huge volumes of material, but really not much to show for it in the end.

Let Yourself Be Partial by [[Chris Osmond]]

On writing and first drafts... meh

https://www.millersbookreview.com/p/writerly-life-joan-didion

apparently quoted from Joan Didion: The Last Interview

Digging by [[Seamus Heaney]]<br /> via Poetry Foundation

Dinah Lenny mentioned this poem at LAAC Writer's Club 2024-04-18

Seamus Heaney mentions how his father and grandfather worked the land to dig and grow potatoes, yet he chooses to do his "digging" with his pen.

See also and cross-date his other poem about digging potatoes: https://nationalfamineway.ie/seamus-heaneys-at-a-potato-digging/ "At a Potato Digging"

What does Josephs say about himself? (Peter Brier)

I get my education writing about things that until I actually do write about them I don't know that much about. I read. up I think through. I write out.

00:09:57

How can we redefine "writing" in the 20th century? Is this a conversation that exists only in feminist-theory based, higher-ed., environments? Is this redefining writing completely, adding new facets to the definition, or reworking the original?

Finding Forrester: The Key to Writing

The Screenless Writer by [[Steven Budden Jr.]] (aka Classic Typewriter)

"My screenless computer, which is a box of these [handmade] cards. The NEXUS which stands for Network of EXperiences Synchronicities and UnderStanding." —Steven Budden, Jr.

for - example - language - assumptions - I am writing this chapter

for - question - language training - ALG - listening and speaking first - when does reading and writing appear?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181536/quotes

In this quote from Finding Forrester (Columbia Pictures, 2000) Forrester (portrayed by Sean Connery) turns the idea that writing is thinking on its head.

for - question - embodying paradox - writing - Is he saying that I am alternating between subject and object?

The majority of Scheil's critiques of desired material seems to have been filled in broadly by:

Henley, Georgia, and Joshua Byron Smith, eds. A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Brill’s Companions to European History 22. Brill, 2020. http://archive.org/details/oapen-20.500.12657-42537.

Obviously this isn't an inconsequential amount of scholarship (575+ pp) to have included in Reeve's volume.

While it's nice to identify what is not in the reviewed volume, it's probably better to frame it that way rather than to seemingly blame the authors/editors for not having included such a massive amount of work. This sort of poor framing is too often seen in the academic literature. Reporting on results and work and putting it out is much more valuable in the short and long term than worrying so much about what is not there. Authors should certainly self-identify open questions for their readers and create avenues to follow them up, but they don't need to be all things to all people.

Writing The Long Goodbye by [[Mark Coggins]]

Why chatGPT can't replace writing

The Nonwriter's Guide to Writing A Lot by [[James Horton]]

Horton describes writing as a top down process rather than a bottom up one, but tries to frame it in a bottom up one. No wonder people have issues with writing, especially non-fiction stuff. Too many different processes going on all at once in too many directions.

He uses the phrase "splat draft" in the sense that others might call a "vomit draft", but not in the sense of Mozart's peeing cow.

Perez-Riverol, Yasset, Laurent Gatto, Rui Wang, Timo Sachsenberg, Julian Uszkoreit, Felipe Da Veiga Leprevost, Christian Fufezan, et al. 2016. “Ten Simple Rules for Taking Advantage of Git and GitHub.” Edited by Scott Markel. PLOS Computational Biology 12 (7): e1004947. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004947.

10 rules to use github and git for academic writing

Brunson, Daniel Burke. 2024. “Leveraging Git and GitHub for Academic Collaboration.” Daniel B. Brunson. August 21, 2024. https://www.dbbrunson.com/docs/effective-online-presence/need-and-toolkit/leveraging-git-github/.

Quick review of the benefits of git and github for academic writing and collaboration

I seems to me that the key. Luhmann and others have their own methods and they weren´t searching for the perfect writing system, they work with what they have.

I think that it is the hyperconecction and the perfectionism that trap us in a infinite loop of the perfect system rather than the imperfections but productive outputs..

Maybe what is needed is a feedback loop that do not scare us so we can write more and better with time..

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46

Original version (or owned copy) at: https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

method and madness by [[Alan Jacobs]]

via In which I describe my writing “methods." by [[Alan Jacobs]]

reply:

@ayjay Thanks for sharing this. My method is often very much like yours. Lots of internal distillation, slowly over time. I remember hearing a story that Mozart wrote music "like a cow pees" (in one giant and immediate flood and then done). I feel like large works of writing, composing, etc. springing, as if fully formed from the head of Zeus is more common than is acknowledged. Cory Doctorow hints at a similar sort of method in his own work in The Memex Method. I'm also reminded of bits of what neuroscientist Barbara Oakley calls "diffuse thinking" or a more internalized version of Michael Ondaatje's "thinkering" described in The English Patient.

Local writers host ‘typewriter revivals’ by [[Algernon D'Ammassa Las Cruces Bulletin]]

Rosenwald, Michael S. “Peter Elbow, Professor Who Transformed Freshman Comp, Dies at 89.” The New York Times, February 27, 2025, sec. Education. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/education/peter-elbow-dead.html.

Creating on Small Typewriters by [[Joe Van Cleave]]

Portable typewriters give up a level of professionalism in one's documents for their size and ease of portability.

In particular, the slug alignments may be slightly off compared to larger machines. Ideally they allow for one to be good enough, especially for first draft documents or journaling.

Typewriter Strike Out Corrections by [[Joe Van Cleave]]

truly the tension between priming and sparking..

reply to u/Sept-27 at https://old.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1itbduv/how_to_begin_storytelling_with_smart_notes/

Ahrens' book will likely leave you with more questions than answers and really has nothing directly to say on the practice of fictional storytelling. Doto's book does a better job of filling in these pieces but approaches writing in general rather than specifically fiction.

For fiction writers, I often recommend they don't practice putting Luhmann-artig numbers on their cards, but organize them in a more impromptu manner and allow them to shift more as you write. This allows things to shift more easily during the process and provides for a bit more creativity.

Some resources and examples for fiction with a ZK:<br /> - Vladimir Nabokov - David Lynch - take particular note of his method taught by Frank Daniel at AFI - Dustin Lance Black - Card index for fiction writing - The Zettelkasten Method for Fiction Writing

Take the inspiration these suggest, but don't go down the rabbit hole too deeply. You're going to want to evolve something that works best for you and your modes of writing, so trying to imitate someone else's system too closely will be the kiss of death.

for - Bayo writing about writing

"a degenerating research programme"

lmao, survivors survive

via Chris Aldrich h. annotations. Author posits succesful academic writing rest on behavioral, artisanal, social and emotional habits. That last part of this blurb suggest a connection to [[Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi]]'s point.

Sword, Helen. Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017. https://amzn.to/4iYPhCE.

Scholars Talk Writing: Helen Sword by [[Rachel Toor]] in Chronicle of Higher Education, 2017-07-31 archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20210722062708/https://www.chronicle.com/article/scholars-talk-writing-helen-sword/

I like this framing!

for - new insight - second cause of human separation - after settling down, it was WRITING! intriguing! - from - Emergence Magazine - interview - An Ethics of Wild Mind - David Hinton - adjacency - sense of separation - first - settling down - human place - second - writing - from - Emergence Magazine - interview - An Ethics of Wild Mind - David Hinton

adjacency - between - sense of separation - first - settling down - human place - second - transition from oral to written language - adjacency relationship - Interesting that I was just reading an article on language and perception from the General Semantics organization: General Semantics and non-verbal awareness - The claim is that the transition from oral language to written language created the feeling of interiority and of a separate "soul". - This is definitely worth exploring!

explore claim - the transition from oral language traditions to writing led us to form the sense of interiority and of a "soul" separate from the body - This claim, if we can validate it, can have profound implications - Writing definitely led us to create much more complex words but we were able to do much more efficient timebinding - transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next. - We didn't have to depend on just a few elders to pass the knowledge on. With the invention of the printing press, written language got an exponential acceleration in intergenerational knowledge transmission. - This had a huge feedback effect on the oral language itself, increase the number of words and meanings exponentially. - There are complex recipes for everything and written words allow us to capture the complex recipes or instructions in ways that would overwhelm oral traditions.

to - article - General Semantics and Non-Verbal Awareness - https://hyp.is/BePQhLvTEe-wYD_MPM9N3Q/www.time-binding.org/Article-Database

for - new insight - second cause of human separation - after settling down, it was writing! intriguing! - from - Emergence Magazine - interview - An Ethics of Wild Mind - David Hinton