I interview myself about my novel, Evertype

Evertype is now available on Amazon and Lulu. I decided to interview myself on this occasion.

Me: So what's this story about?

Me: A guy who tries to leave his old life behind, including digital tech, and remake himself.

Let me guess. He gets a typewriter, right?

OK, that was predictable. And yeah, there is lots of stuff that I bet will appeal to typewriter nuts like me.

What else?

There's "the surveillance, terror, disease, and demagoguery of our age," as I put it in the blurb.

So this is some kind of ideological screed?

Well, I hope not. And it's definitely not a satire. American reality has become so extreme that it's unsatirizable. I tried to take the opposite approach: dial it back, make it more ambiguous, make it small-town-sized.

What's your genre?

I'd say it falls into the catch-all basket of "literary fiction," but with some thriller elements. I enjoy plot twists and suspense, so I tried to work some in.

Did you take inspiration from thriller writers?

No, my main inspiration was Paul Auster. I also found moods I liked in Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

Is there any relationship with The Typewriter Revolution?

Sure, some of the same concerns and obsessions. But there's a big difference between fiction and nonfiction. The nonfiction author has to do a lot of telling, and you want to keep that to a minimum in fiction, showing the action and hoping that it doesn't reduce to some theoretical point of view but actually comes to life.

How did the story come about?

I drafted it in two months, ten years apart. The first part was written for National Novel Writing Month in November, 2010. I thought I was done, but exactly ten years after typing THE END, I launched into a second part. The story was very incomplete without it. Both parts were drafted by typewriter, of course, and published on this blog. Over the next five years, I did several rounds of rewriting. I worked with Trent Reker, a graphic artist and typospherian, who created the cover and illustrations. Linda M. Au did the layout.

Is the text all typewritten, like in the Cold Hard Type series?

No, but there are typewritten elements—letters, stories, poems, and so on—that I did type on a variety of machines. So there's a mix of digital fonts for most of the story with images of typewriting that I hope create some visual appeal.

Did you work out the plot in advance?

Not at all. In the first scene I wrote, my protagonist literally can't see any farther than his headlights, and that's how I proceeded. I did know that typewriters would be involved, and I vaguely wanted a couple of moods and themes, but I had no idea what was going to happen. That was much more fun, I think, than filling out some outline. What I especially enjoyed was seeing the conclusions of each part suddenly come together in my imagination. 

Is the plot complicated?

Judge for yourself from this "webwork" diagram I created following the techniques of Harry Stephen Keeler. 

Are you nuts?

Arguably. 

Isn't Keeler a notoriously bad writer?

"Bad" is subjective. Objectively, he's very clever and innovative. I wanted a complicated plot, and I followed his advice: start by having the main character (the thick black line in the diagram) intersect at least four other plot elements, with each encounter causing the next. That leaves you with enough threads to weave a webwork. I think my story reaches Keeler levels of complexity, but my tone is more serious and I hope my style is more elegant.

Tell me about your opening line.

"The most conspicuous act is withdrawal." The narrator is withdrawing all the cash from his bank account, but obviously there's a broader meaning. I want to explore questions about privacy, secrecy, and whether it's possible to disentangle ourselves from the modern world.

So is this novel any good?

That's not for me to say. I'm an amateur, self-published fiction writer, hoping my story will click (pun intended) with some readers. Literary taste is a very personal thing—and I'm probably the only person on earth who can recognize where some details of this story came from.

Thanks for your time.

Sure. Let's hang out together again sometime, OK?

I'll call you.

Durabel goods

Isn't this a handsome typewriter?

 

That's what I thought when, on one of my scrolls through eBay.de, my eye was caught by a Triumph Durabel. This was Triumph's simplest model: no tabulator, no bicolor ribbon, no left platen knob. The serial number dates this one to 1954. On The Typewriter Database we can find examples dating from 1933 to 1957, in different body styles, of course.

For my taste, this body from the '50s is a classic: elegant yet not flashy. The subtly modulated tan color (the only color I've seen) reminds me of gold without indulging in glitz.

This typewriter is handsome from any angle.

I wanted to indulge myself with one of these. The problem was that every Durabel I saw online was QWERTZ, and I can't type on that layout. Then, Chris Mullen of Acme Type Machine Co. in The Hague came to the rescue.

Chris offered a Durabel with a Dutch layout, which is close enough to U.S. QWERTY:

You can always tell a Dutch machine from the ij diphthong (pronounced "eye") and the ƒ sign (for the old Dutch currency, the florin or guilder). 

The typewriter arrived in great condition, perfectly packed, and I immediately inspected it.

Even though the Durabel is below the Norm and Perfekt in terms of features, it is not at all a throw-away, cheaply made typewriter. Everything is expertly assembled and made from high-grade materials. The mechanical design is proven and pleasant. Note how the rear carriage rail is much higher than the front (on most portables, front and rear carriage rails are on the same horizontal plane). 

This arrangement lets you peek down behind the paper table and glimpse the escapement.

The Durabel feels very refined. Although it doesn't have a silent carriage return, the purr of the escapement is gentle and pleasant. The paint is very subtly textured, just short of glossy.

I know, I'm not supposed to be growing my collection, but how could I resist owning and using this typewriter for a while?

Meanwhile, Chris Mullen's business has been struggling recently, in part due to lower demand from American customers (are tariffs a factor?). So he's launched a Kickstarter campaign with the following goals:

—Keep the doors of the workshop and showroom open in order to continue to provide restoration work and expand our other activities such as technical training, historical preservation, public information and outreach.

—Continue to provide an alternative to electronic, screen-based creativity

—Continue to support writers, artists and students with free or very low-cost typewriters

—Provide training to two new technicians to help the next generation of typewriter artisans

—Increase and improve our public typewriter programs (seniors, schools, etc.)

—Develop programs to reach a broader public through partnerships with larger companies 

The campaign is off to a strong start. I hope you'll check it out, contribute what you can, and spread the word.

Typewriter review: MapleField

The MapleField typewriter did not disappoint!

I expected it to be junk, and it is.

This machine was made by Shanghai Weilv Mechanism Company, the last remaining manufacturer of manual typewriters. The MapleField continues the tradition of low quality established by the Royal Epoch, We R Memory Keepers (here's a video review by Just My Typewriter), Royal Classic, and other typewriters that are essentially the same apart from their names and styling.

Given my experience with Chinese typewriters, why did I buy this one? Well, it was a Buy It Now on eBay for just over $20, and it was in Cincinnati. How could I resist this opportunity for research?

The Royal Classic had a metal shell; the MapleField uses lightweight plastic. 

At least they figured out that plastic type slugs on the Classic weren't a great idea (who knew?). The slugs on the MapleField are metal.

The platen knobs screw in and out of the platen. The platen itself is surprisingly heavy, and the "rubber" seems to be hard plastic. This thing feels like a policeman's truncheon in my hands.

The ribbon cover design looks pretty good, until you type. Then you realize that it obscures the typing. Just plain dumb.

Here's a view from below.

The escapement operates well. Note how the larger gear connects to a mechanism hidden in the white plastic housing. That mechanism is a tabulator brake, which works very well: when you hit TAB, the carriage moves in a civilized way toward the left.

Unfortunately, the tab brake is constantly engaged, which means that the carriage return feels stiff.

Here's how the tab set and clear mechanism functions.

That video was taken after I corrected the misalignment of the tab stops and the set/clear mechanism. The mechanism was operating between stops, so it was completely ineffective.

Two keys weren't working, because the links between them and the typebars were missing.

With a little struggle, I managed to replace the links with paper clips.

That may sound silly, but paper clips are actually great for this purpose. They're easy to cut and bend into the necessary shapes, but they're very strong when they're in place (just imagine trying to break a paper clip by pulling on its ends—you can't).

The motion (alignment of upper- and lowercase) was terrible.

I adjusted the motion and got the MapleField to the point where it could type respectably. I like that "3":

But I soon found that the motion was out of alignment again. Why?? Because the entire type basket was too loose. 

The ball bearings on which the type basket rides up and down are not snug in their housings. The left housing has more "goo" (some sort of glue?) than the right. Is that the problem?

As I fiddled with the mechanism, trying to make it tighter, a bearing fell out.

Soon the other bearing fell out as well. There was no way to get them back in and keep them in place. And that was the end of the MapleField. 

As I've said before, these China-made designs are not intrinsically terrible. If they were made with good materials and quality control, they would be all right. Manufacturing and assembling this typewriter takes a significant amount of equipment and manual labor. Why not do it right?

But as it is, the slipshod assembly is a downright insult to the consumer, and everything is made of low-grade material. Most of the metal pieces on the MapleField can be bent easily with your fingers.

At least I was able to harvest some potentially useful pieces: the keys, mainspring, small springs, and feet. The box, with its form-fitting styrofoam, should also be useful.

I also created a PDF of the user's manual, which is now on my website.

Sadly, these terrible typewriters are selling well at over $200 apiece. Amazon says that the blue version alone sold over 50 units in the past month. I take this as a sign of growing interest in typewriters. But many buyers will be so frustrated by the MapleField that they will judge all typewriters by this one, and decide that their momentary interest was nothing more than a foolish whim.

According to a label on the box of the MapleField I bought, it was returned to Amazon by a buyer in New York City. How it got to Cincinnati, I don't know. In any case, it is now right where it belongs.