How to Choose a Typewriter for Serious Writing by [[Jonny Eberle]] on 2024-11-24

A good overview of some of the considerations one may want to make when looking for a typewriter.

Note making does create space for reflection, is the thinking. But even before notes, annotation does too.

n:: notes as thinking vgl 'writing is thinking' annotation as thinking vs conversation, conversation as thinking through expression

more detailed, specific on beliefs

I see this as collaborative writing with AI; no longer just the students work

https://trackbear.app/

What else is part of the DNA of online writing?

original source?

Reply to @Edmund https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/21907/#Comment_21907

Doto's book is the best and tightest yet for explaining both how to implement a Luhmann-artig zettelkasten as well as why along with the affordances certain elements provide. He does a particularly good job of providing clear and straightforward definitions which have a muddy nature in some of the online spaces, which tends to cause issues for people new to the practice. Sadly, for me, there isn't much new insight due to the amount of experience and research I bring to the enterprise.

I do like that Doto puts at least some emphasis on why one might want to use alphanumerics even in digital spaces, an idea which has broadly been sidelined in most contexts for lack of experience or concrete affordances for why one might do it.

The other area he addresses, which most elide and the balance gloss over at best, is that of the discussion of using the zettelkasten for output. Though he touches on some particular methods and scaffolding, most of it is limited to suggestions based on his own experience rather than a broader set of structures and practices. This is probably the biggest area for potential expansion and examples I'd like to see, especially as I'm reading through Eustace Miles' How to Prepare Essays, Lectures, Articles, Books, Speeches and Letters, with Hints on Writing for the Press (London: Rivingtons, 1905).

I could have had some more material in chapter 3 which has some fascinating, but still evolving work. Ideas like interstitial journaling and some of the related productivity methods are interesting, but Doto only barely scratches the surface on some of these techniques and methods which go beyond the traditional "zettelkasten space", but which certainly fall in his broader framing of "system for writing" promise.

Doto's "triangle of creativity", a discussion of proximal feedback, has close parallels of Adler and Hutchins' idea of "The Great Conversation" (1952), which many are likely to miss.

For those who missed out, Dan Allosso has posted video from the sessions at https://lifelonglearn.substack.com/ Sadly missing, unless you're in the book club, are some generally lively side chat discussions as the primary video discussion was proceeding. The sessions had a breadth of experiences from the new to the old hands as well as from students to teachers and everywhere in between.

Read A System for Writing by Bob Doto by [[Ton Zijlstra]] – Interdependent Thoughts

Doctorow analogizes his reading and writing in the same sort of chemistry/statistical mechanics method as I have in the past.

https://writingmonth.org/ Writing Month

A writing tracking project started in 2024 as a replacement for NaNoWriMo infrastructure

Example: Terence Eden https://writingmonth.org/~edent/

https://www.getoutline.com/

Mentioned by PK

Sounds like you're doing what Mortimer J. Adler and Charles van Doren would call "inspectional reading" and outlining the space of your topic. This is both fine and expected. You have to start somewhere. You're scaffolding some basic information in a new space and that's worthwhile. You're learning the basics.

Eventually you may come back and do a more analytical read and/or cross reference your first sources with other sources in a syntopical read. It's at these later two levels of reading where doing zettelkasten work is much more profitable, particularly for discerning differences, creating new insights, and expanding knowledge.

If you want to think of it this way, what would a kindergartner's zettelkasten contain? a high school senior? a Ph.D. researcher? 30 year seasoned academic researcher? Are the levels of knowledge all the same? Is the kindergartner material really useful to the high school senior? Probably not at all, it's very basic. As a result, putting in hundreds of atomic notes as you're scaffolding your early learning can be counter-productive. Read some things, highlight them, annotate them. You'll have lots of fleeting notes, but most of them will seem stupidly basic after a month or two. What you really want as main notes are the truly interesting advanced stuff. When you're entering a new area, certainly index ideas, but don't stress about capturing absolutely everything until you have a better understanding of what's going on. Then bring your zettelkasten in to leverage yourself up to the next level.

• Adler, Mortimer J. “How to Mark a Book.” Saturday Review of Literature, July 6, 1940. https://www.unz.com/print/SaturdayRev-1940jul06-00011/
• Adler, Mortimer J., and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book: The Classical Guide to Intelligent Reading. Revised and Updated edition. 1940. Reprint, Touchstone, 2011.

reply to u/jack_hanson_c at https://old.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1g9dv9b/is_scoping_the_subject_a_counterzettelkasten/

Books are about large blocks of uninterrupted time...

( ~13:00)

Perhaps. I don't think so. With a Zettelkasten I believe you can write without 4-hour deep work blocks... However, maybe he is right... I haven't really written yet so I can't be certain.

What about using the notes for comparison and/or contrast of ideas?

Overview of Bob Doto's suggested process:<br /> 1. having and capturing thoughts<br /> 2. refining thoughts into clear ideas that can be repurposed<br /> 3. connecting ideas across topics<br /> 4. developing connections and making them accessible<br /> 5. transforming notes into writing for readers 6. re-integrating writing back into the system (he lumped this in with 5, but I've broken it out)

How do these steps relate to those of others?

Eg: Miles1905: collect, select, arrange, dictate/write (and broadly composition)

Doto, Bob. A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly - A Zettelkasten Primer. 1st ed. New Old Traditions, 2024. https://amzn.to/3ztjrfb.

Annotation url: urn:x-pdf:231323658d79d9bdf946e1cfbe01e500

Alternate annotation view

1962 Vintage IBM Typewriter Training Film IBM Selectric Proper Typing Procedures, w/ Bud McDole by [[Computer History Archives Project]]

Right at the Typewriter. 16 mm. San Francisco, CA: KQED, 1962. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPfHAW_OfGo.

On manual typewriters one "snaps" the keys while on an electric keyboard one "taps" the keys for maximum speed and accuracy.

Overview of functionality of an IBM typewriter.

To add longevity to one's carbon papers they should be rotated both top to bottom and front to back within one's packs.

Use plastic type cleaner, meant for cleaning type slugs, to clean the excess ink from a typewriter. Form it into a point and press it to the letter to erase several times. Then erase with eraser shield and eraser.

To type to the very bottom of the page, particularly with a carbon pack, to prevent slippage at the bottom, insert a "trailer sheet" about halfway down the first page. Insert it at the back of the pack just behind the original and between the first carbon sheet.

For typing small sheets of paper (index cards) fold a pleat into a regular sheet of paper and use the lip to hold the smaller sheet you're typing on.

To more quickly type envelopes, do the first then reverse the platen so that only about an inch of the top of the envelope is visible. Then insert the next envelope behind the first and continue reversing the platen. This will allow the finished envelopes to stack at the paper table and speed the threading and typing of envelopes in rapid succession.

Use of the divots on the typing guide for making horizontal or vertical lines while moving the carriage or rotating the platen respectively.

How to change the typeball and the ribbon cartridge on the IBM selectric.

What work exactly does Miles include in his description of preparation of a 30,000 word book in two hours?

He specifically excludes dictation. He does include selection of ideas and arrangement. He also says it includes "collection", but I'm supposing that he's taking a larger tranche of cards from a possibly massive collection and collecting only those he needs right now? Certainly the reading, thinking, and collecting work can't be included in this two hours of work.

Does he have a better definition of what he means by collection?

Miles doesn't specify how he comes by the practice of a "Card-System" other than "by degrees" as well as elaborating on it in the months before he writes this book.

(Having something more concrete would be nice though...)

At some point he read Barrett Wendell's book on composition (1891) to discover that he recommended cards as well.

He's repeating (and thus emphasizing) the admonition that a card system is not expensive, particularly in relation to the savings in time and effort.

This book was finally published in 1905. The introduction was written in 1899 and the mentioned Feb 1900 publication of How to Remember didn't happen until 1901.

Miles, Eustace Hamilton. How to Remember: Without Memory Systems or with Them. Frederick Warne & Co., 1901.

writing and waiting is useful in many instances, and particularly for clarity of expression.

see also: <br /> - angry letter https://hypothes.is/a/6OoqHofyEe-1mtOohGA63w - diffuse thinking<br /> - typewriter (waiting) <br /> - editing (waiting) https://hypothes.is/a/VxRNeofvEe-5n1dpCEM48Q

Recall: Abraham Lincoln's angry letter - put it in a drawer

It could be interesting/useful to create a checklist or set of procedures (perhaps a la Oblique Strategies") for editing a major work.

Sections in this TOC could be useful for creating such.

Even in 1905 writers had to wait interminably after submitting their writing...

it's only gotten worse since then...

The process of having a work typewritten forced the affordance of creating time away from the writing of a piece. This allows for both active and diffuse thinking on the piece as well as the ability to re-approach it with fresh eyes days or weeks later.

How is this accomplished exactly? How could one imitate this effect?

How do we break down his material and style to re-create it?

"Brevity is not always the same as Vigour, but the two generally go hand in hand." -Miles

Attempting to escape the huge list of potential "Chief faults in composition" is a solid reason not to try to cram a paper or essay in a single night/day.

One of the major affordances of using a zettelkasten or card index for writing is that it forces the writer to break things down into their constituent parts, thereby making the entire process of writing far easier and less complex. One can separately focus their attention on the smaller steps of collecting, selecting, and arranging the material before beginning to actually write.

Creating a comparison or illustration of an idea is a means of emphasizing it. It also serves as a form of repetition and aide-memoire.

Miles, Eustace Hamilton. How to Prepare Essays, Lectures, Articles, Books, Speeches and Letters, with Hints on Writing for the Press. London: Rivingtons, 1905. http://archive.org/details/howtoprepareessa00mileuoft.

evidence of a card system/zettelkasten method in this?

I found a copy and indeed there is evidence!

Step Back In Time At The Mesa Typewriter Exchange by [[Phil Latzman]]

Writing is thinking and most of the times when someone thinks its messy.

We should not only teach that how to think throug writing, but then how to edit and revise to present our thinking as argumentation

Typewriter Video Series - Episode 85: Integral Paper Rolls by [[Joe Van Cleave]]

quote from Kate Edgar, Sacks' assistant and editor

Julius Reizen in reviewing over Umberto Eco's index card system in How to Write a Thesis, defines his own "insurance card" as one which contains "hard-to-classify thoughts, questions, and areas for further inquiry". These he would keep together so that they don't otherwise get lost in the variety of other locations one might keep them

These might be akin to Ahrens' "fleeting notes" but are ones which may not easily or even immediately be converted in to "permanent notes" for one's zettelkasten. However, given their mission critical importance, they may be some of the most important cards in one's repository.

link this to - idea of centralizing one's note taking practice to a single location

Is this idea in Eco's book and Reizen is the one that gives it a name since some of the other categories have names? (examples: bibliographic index cards, reading index cards (aka literature notes), cards for themes, author index cards, quote index cards, idea index cards, connection cards). Were these "officially" named and categorized by Eco?

May be worthwhile to create a grid of these naming systems and uses amongst some of the broader note taking methods. Where are they similar, where do they differ?

Multi-search tools that have full access to multiple trusted data stores (ostensibly personal ones across notebooks, hard drives, social media services, etc.) could potentially solve the problem of needing to remember where you noted something.

Currently, in the social media space especially, this is not a realized service.

How to ZK a fiction book! Zettelkasten for Fiction- Where Imagination Finds Order'- Book WIP ep. 78 by [[Victoria Crowder]]

meh... interested in the mention, but nothing directly actionable here. Perhaps in her other material?...

Not that it couldn't be done, but I'll suggest that following the structure/order of a Luhmann-artig zettelkasten may be a bit more limiting or difficult for creating fiction.

There's a rich history of researching, outlining, and writing with card indexes as part of the creative process. Perhaps looking briefly at some examples particularly focusing on fiction may be helpful? Once you've done this, you can pick and choose the portions and affordances that work best for your preferred way of thinking and working.

Some quick examples:

• Vladimir Nabokov https://www.openculture.com/2014/02/the-notecards-on-which-vladimir-nabokov-wrote-lolita.html
• David Lynch process via Frank Daniel: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%27David+Lynch%27
• Variations of this method include:
  • Dustin Lance Black https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrvawtrRxsw
  • Ben Rowland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwKjuBvNi40
• Randy Ingermanson. “The Snowflake Method For Designing A Novel.” Advanced Fiction Writing, circa 2013. https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

Perhaps querying my digital zettelkasten may be helpful for you? Start with: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%27card+index+for+writing%27

Ultimately, you can only spend so much time going down the rabbit hole of how you ought to do this work and taking suggestions or reading about how others have done it. The more difficult but more fruitful portion is to pick a method which seems like it will work for you and experiment with it by actually using or evolving it for yourself. How you start may not necessarily be how you end, but you won't know what's best for you if you don't start. Practice, practice, practice will get you much farther faster.

reply to u/Atreides_Lion at https://reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1ft4r3z/a_very_important_matter_for_me/

I think this is a good example of a misleading marketing ploy that shouldn't exist in technical documentation.

Robert Caro's method of writing

The additional "hidden context" is that the rachet/gear seen in many of these diagrams is usually attached to a radial spring (or some other device) which, as it is wound, stores energy which is later used by the bigger device in which the rachet and pawl are encased. Examples include the stem of watches, which when wound, store energy which the watch later uses to run as it counts the seconds. Another example is the mainspring of a typewriter which is attached to a ratchet/pawl set up; when you push the carriage to the right, the spring gets wound up and stores energy which is slowly expended by the escapement a space or a letter at a time as you type. In the zettelkasten analogy, the box and numbered cards placed in it act as the pawl (the wedge that prevents backward movement), as you add more and more information, you're storing/building up "potential energy" in small bits. This "stored energy" can be spent at a later time by allowing you to more easily write an article, paper, book, etc. In some sense, the zettelkasten (as most tools do) allows you a "mechanical advantage" in the writing process over trying to remember everything you've ever read and then relying on your ability to spit it all back out in a well-ordered manner.

reply to Muhammed Ali at https://discord.com/channels/992400632390615070/992400632776507447/1286577013439594497

continuation of https://hypothes.is/a/GTPIPnYiEe-GTUu4YcdeAQ

Typewriters? In 2024? Are You Nuts? by Jesse M. Slater for [[Raconteur Press]]

A short, but relatively solid typewriter 101 story for someone looking for a distraction-free writing machine. Certainly not completist, but enough to get your toes wet.

Slater uses his typewriter for a first draft, then edits the second draft as he re-types it into his computer to have a digital copy for further editing and distribution.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231121081108/https://www.humanwordsproject.com/

Found via Richard Polt's blog.

Site no longer exists in 2024

Makes reference like whatever we do, the result will depend of our decisions or choices

“The Da Vinci Code” Trial: Dan Brown’s Witness Statement Is a Great Read by [[Peter Lattman]]

sasssssy

Typewriter Video Series - Episode 147: Font Sizes and the Writing Process by [[Joe Van Cleave]]

typewriters for note making

double or 1 1/2 spacing with smaller typefaces may be more efficient for drafting documents, especially first drafts

editing on actual paper can be more useful for some

Drafting on a full sheet folded in half provides a book-like reading experience for reading/editing and provides an automatic backing sheet

typewritten (or printed) sheets may be easier to see and revise than digital formats which may hide text the way ancient scrolls did for those who read them.

Jack Kerouac used rolls of paper to provide continuous writing experience. Doesn't waste the margins of paper at the top/bottom. This may be very useful for first drafts.

JVC likes to thread rolls of paper into typewriters opposite to the original curl so as to flatten the paper out in the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixedink

MixedInk was a startup that provided web-based, collaborative writing software enabling large groups of people to create text that expresses a collective opinion, such as a mission statement, editorial, political platform, open letter or product review.

I want a bookwheel for my typewriter collection.

Isaac Azimov had multiple typewriters and used each of them for work on a different writing project.

would be a good title for a book

Cothran, Ann, and George E. Mason. “The Typewriter: Time-Tested Tool for Teaching Reading and Writing.” The Elementary School Journal 78, no. 3 (1978): 171–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1001415

No new results here, but a modest overview and literature review of research on typewriters in classrooms.

M. W. Tate's 1934 typewriter studies showed student gains in language usage and spelling. Now that computers have automatic spell-checkers and students less frequently use dictionaries or study spelling in particular, does spelling ability in modern classrooms keep pace with numbers from earlier in the century when more emphasis was put on that portion of writing pedagogy?

One must wonder if the early use of typewriters to teach reading and writing research matches that of modern day use of computers and tablets in the same classrooms?

Interesting thought. This guy relates the upcome of AI (non-fiction) writing to the lack of willingness people have to find out what is true and what is false.

Similar to Nas & Damian Marley's line in the Patience song -- "The average man can't prove of most of the things that he chooses to speak of. And still won't research and find the root of the truth that you seek of."

If you want to form an opinion about something, do this educated, not based on a single source--fact-check, do thorough research.

Charlie Munger's principle. "I never allow myself to have [express] an opinion about anything that I don't know the opponent side's argument better than they do."

It all boils down to a critical self-thinking society.

Really useful video about the generation of story beats.

A great podcast about writing which will help you explore the work, practice and philosophy of writing fiction through a light-hearted conversation

—Larry, Throw Momma from the Train, 1987

Best article on Deep POV I have ever read.

9/8g The card index technique is based on the experience that one cannot think without writing – at least not in demanding, selectively accessing memory-based contexts.

This also means that one cannot think without making allowances for differences.

I like this slightly more differentiated instantiation for thinking better than Ahren's assertion that one can't think without writing. Luhmann qualifies it over and above Ahrens who elides meaning if this was the source he may have been tangentially referencing. (Was it an explicit reference? check...)

https://www.blog.goat.ai/goat-st/

https://web.archive.org/web/20240711102003/https://longnow.org/ideas/moonbound/

via Frank Meeuwsen https://frankmeeuwsen.com/2024/07/10/dragons-on-the.html

On writing [[Moonbound by Robin Sloan]] , Sloan makes a few remarks about his notes that support his writing process.

His writing process is for several weeks to go through notes, just looking through them, let it mingle in his head. Then put things together and look for emergent clusters / topics.

Meaningful writing needs a driving personally urgent question. Sounds about right. Meaningful to whom though, and urgent at what scale? I think my own more continuous urgent questions feed into my company and the 'carrying' themes throughout my blogging, and sound through in how I share my ideas and stories in client orgs. In my blogging 'urgent' can be a few minutes thing, or a thing over a week, urging me to blog something in the now. It is forceful but temporary and localised. Vgl formulering v [[% Interessevelden 20200523102304]] [[Holding questions 20091015123253]]

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/nabokov.jpeg via https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

This photo, similar to others in the Carl Mydans series for LIFE Magazine is surely from his September 1958 photo series, though I couldn't find an original from the LIFE archive.

Nabokov, reading off of index cards in his zettelkasten, dictates to his wife Vera who is typing on what appears to be a 1949 or 1950 Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

Notice metal strip on the back of the typewriter with small rectangular blocks. This is the Royal's tabulator set up which distinguishes the Quiet De Luxe model from the Arrow model.

The body styling of this typewriter changed in 1950 from Dreyfuss' original 1948 design. Because it's light gray it has to be from '49 or '50 as the '48 original was a black body with dark gray highlights and didn't have chrome across the front as this one does in an alternate angle.

The benefits of using a typewriter to write novels and poetry. by [[Classic Typewriter]]

Imminent crisis is prerequisite to a savior.

good example of well-designed grant

hm. old spy novels emphasized politicians as locus of control and businessmen as villains. villains in the sense of antagonists. what about villainous businessmen who are in the locus of control?

The most masculine thing is devising covers for activities you enjoy, but may be considered feminine or frivolous.

Language is essential for the expression of thought, be it novel or ancient.

The complexity of the topic is determined by the content of the discussion the topic is about.

To me, it seems that Adler et al., are arguing that a topic should be stated as a phrase with varying degrees of complexity, determined by ?

Some examples of topics that are formulated and used in the original syntopicon.

A topic should never be suggestive, for it would not be a topic in that way.

https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/faq/what-is-perplexity-pages

https://astrohaus.com/freewrite/

common technique that I haven't used; tell the full story up front, or at least allude to it, before dropping in deeper down below.

not an intro paragraph but like a different story to contain your story. this is literlaly just an intro. but whatever, like the introduction of a detail as a segue into a story anchored by another detail

This is great. I could definitely see Agrilinks blog posts being leveraged by teams and individuals to have that consistent space to write and share. I have a Wordpress blog but not everybody has their own site.

this would be a cool opening scene, the motorboats trailing the cargo ship

fun sentence

Naturalism was prevalent in the time of Rilke (circa 1900s). Rilke, however, had a mystical experience in Russia? (did he literally have an experience of unity and bliss?) He combined this mysticism with the objectivity that he learned from Auguste Rodin.

As a result, his writing had a mystical and objective bent to it. How exactly? Was this also present in his Apollo poems (1907)?

When you catch and idea, you see it in your mind's eye, and you feel it, and you can hear it. And then you write that idea down on a piece of paper, and you write it down in such a way that when you read it, the idea comes back in full.<br /> —David Lynch 3:05

Schools and districts must adhere to these requirements to help ensure the implementation of technically sound and educationally meaningful IEPs and to provide FAPE.

Interleaving

Interesting. Needs more research on my part.

This is because of the fact that one needs to think (process) before writing. One can't possibly write everything verbatim. Deep processing. Relational thinking.

Alternate angle at http://images.google.com/hosted/life/81b7b3f24bbe1b3a.html

Nabokov used index cards for his research and writing. In one index card for research on Lolita, he creates a "weight-heigh-age table for girls of school age" to be able to specify Lolita's measurements. He also researched the Colt catalog of 1940 to get gun specifications to make those small points realistic in his writing.

syndication link

via 1949 April 06, Naugatuck Daily News, Walter Winchell In New York, Page 4, Column 5, Naugatuck, Connecticut. (NewspaperArchive)

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/14/writing-bleed/

definitely a trend of popular theories aligned with woke narratives being beat back

Polt, Richard. The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century. 1st ed. Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press, 2015.

annotation URL: urn:x-pdf:65fe580cf845ed035c4e57ad02a987cf

alternate annotation URL

Woody Allen Has Used the Same Typewriter for 50 Years! by [[Roger Friedman]] in Showbiz411

Referenced documentary is from PBS: American Masters Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011)

Williams, Alex. “Paul Auster, the Patron Saint of Literary Brooklyn, Dies at 77.” The New York Times, May 1, 2024, sec. Books. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/books/paul-auster-dead.html.

digging the words into the page sounds adjacent to Seamus Heaney's "Digging" which analogizes writing to digging: https://hypothes.is/a/J-z8OgfQEe-0adtJyXyb3g

There's something here which suggests pens, typewriters, keyboards, etc. as direct extended mind objects as tools for thought. A sense of rumination and expulsion simultaneously.

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

https://web.archive.org/web/20240430091654/https://pdworkman.com/writing-a-novel-in-markdown/

A full description of PD Workman's workflow writing a book in markdown and Obsidian. Mentions using Canvas and Excalidraw to visualise plot development, as well as Kanban style boards. Mentions compiling tools to create manuscript from loose files. Seems similar to Scrivener except that has this baked in and thus less flexible?

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

Typewriters provide a tangible sense of accomplishment when a writer finishes a page.

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.