The previous Paper Blogging post, Storm and Summer, Stream and Still, as with most of my writing, did not start out as a digital document.

Silver-Reed—a humdrum but, to me, a wonderful machine

It was first written on a typewriter—portable and snappy, good for getting down initial thoughts on the page.

That post happened to be written on a Silver-Reed, which I often use to write in bed. It’s a humble machine with an extraordinary story, which I’m busy writing up.

But I have several different go-to machines, some more portable than others. Among them, Olympia SM3, or SM9, Olympia Splendid 99, or Smith-Corona Silent-Super (below on my early morning studio desk). All good choices that reduce the friction between me and putting down words, mostly because they work well and I enjoy using them. But there are other reasons.

Smith-Corona Silent-Super—first thing in the morning and first draft

Why start with a typewriter?

When using my laptop, I know I have the whole weight of the internet bearing down on me. I appreciate various productivity apps and site blockers, and I’ll write more about those in another post, but there is no need to block anything with a typewriter.

With a typewriter, when it comes to drafting, I am free to write.

Pen and paper. Pencil and index card. Typewriter and index card, even. For distraction-free drafting, writing offline and by hand keeps me moving and words flowing. I have pretty good handwriting and love writing by hand. But when I use a typewriter, however many mistakes I make, the visual of typewritten text looks halfway to ‘published’ already. The text is usable, readable, and I can revisit it without strain.

So then what?

Edit at leisure

Okay, now you can make it digital

When you’re ready, open a digital document. Prop the typed page where you can see it. I use a book stand. The one pictured is the one I swear by. (The photo is an affiliate link.) It’s time to retype the text into your chosen format.

Why not simply scan the typed page and convert it? You can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. However, the inefficient act of retyping is also an act of thinking. It’s an opportunity to notice, reconsider, and edit.

The resulting digital version is now slightly beyond the raw feel of a first draft.

Momentum

And when it comes to the first step of digital, I prefer to use the Notes feature of Momentum Dashboard.

Momentum Dashboard is a free Chrome extension that fosters a calm digital environment. The Notes feature is part of the paid version, Momentum Plus, but I find it affordable and continually useful in many ways.

I like the plain text, no frills, colored-background-with-white-letters vibe of Momentum Dashboard Notes. You can use Notes full screen for added focus.

Blog post

If what I’m writing is a blog post, I log into the back end of this Squarespace-built website, open a new post, and paste in the plain text of the Momentum Note. I might also paste it into Word Counter and check the word count and see if any obvious grammar errors stand out.

Then comes formatting the physical look of the blog page, including adding tags, categories, headings, and a title.

And it is time to find, take, choose, and add photos. (For some posts, I start with the pictures and approach the whole thing differently, but there is still a time for typewritten brainstorming.)

Capture those ongoing stray thoughts

You take a break for lunch or do an errand, and while you’re wrestling with traffic, a whole new line of thought pops into your head. Or you’re out walking. What then?

Leave a voice mail. Scribble in a notebook. Write with a fountain pen elegantly or scruffily.

All bets are off once the idea is rolling. Anything will do. Sticky notes, index cards, scrap paper. Get it down!

Then add the edited words to the final draft.

What about starting with phone notes?

Yes, I do capture ideas in the digital space of phone notes. If that’s all I have with me and I have an idea, it works.

I sat in the car outside Boston’s last typewriter shop last winter, and based on the conversation I’d just had with Tom, the owner, wrote the opening paragraph of this post on my phone notes.

Tom Furrier is out of repair tags. He's out of invoices. He's almost out of time, with his store Cambridge Typewriter set to close at the end of March 2025. But he is not out of typewriters, media requests, or kudos from customers.

It’s ironic that I needed to start that one on phone notes.

Say it out loud

Then what? I find it helps to read my words out loud. Or have someone else read them to me. It’s another mode of input and helps show up the flaws, the stumblings, and those awkward, ‘Wait. What?’ passages.

And sometimes ‘cut and paste’ really means it

Last week’s post, Storm and Summer, Stream and Still, was proving rather convoluted and disorganized.

I went for an evening walk to get out of the house. Once away from the screen, it was obvious that when I got home, it would be time for something drastic.

Indeed, I hit Ctrl+P and printed only the highlighted text, four sheets per page. Then, I took a large pair of shears to the pages and lopped them into quarters.

Hands-on editing.

I shuffled and rearranged the pieces, sliced a few here and there, discarded whole sections, and came to a fresh arrangement that made sense. I rewrote some headings in pencil on the paper and set the piles carefully aside.

Back in the digital version, I cut and pasted, sliced, and discarded until that version matched the order I’d found with the physical snippings of text.

Attention Cottage

This entire process is a corner of my own Attention Cottage that works for me.

The inefficiency is a feature, not a bug. The pause between steps. The dip pen speed of writing that C.S. Lewis employed would suit me also.

Need I say, no AI is involved.

No hard and fast process keeps one’s hand and heart connected with words, and those words from one to another connecting us here, even in this digital realm.

Dip pen and ink wells in Emily Dickinson’s bedroom

Overwhelm and the freeze state

The issue I face most often is that of overwhelm, which leads to a freeze state.

Being online with every possible distraction is not my friend. Movement is. And typing on a physically noisy, bell-dinging typewriter brings me into the present moment.

I found that using typewriters in the classroom most helped the students with attention issues. The duty-driven and A-type souls around me look on this process and are confused. Why do you need these dysregulation workarounds? Can’t you just do it?

Sometimes, no.

But once my words are flowing offline, there is the dangerous step of taking that information online if it’s something I need to share digitally. Here comes grounds for overwhelm and opportunities for distraction again. What then?

Slowly and carefully, with boundaries, yes, you can do it.

And here we are at ‘publish’ again.