It’s that time of year again where I am excited for National Novel Writing Month. This year I have my idea already. Need to plan out some details for it. I am going to try my hand at Fantasy this year. Still feeling out what I like to write. So far there has been nothing I don’t enjoy writing. Now whether that writing is good has yet to be determined. Revising my work has not been easy or consistent. No one has made it through any of my first drafts.
What’s going to make this year’s attempt even more exciting is that I will write it completely on my manual typewriters. My collection grew quick. Picked up one mid 2021, then another end of 2021. Then eight more this year. Currently six are functional, it was seven. But mid page the ribbon carrier stayed in the up position. While technically, you can still use it like this. It makes it difficult to see what you are typing. Thankfully, I found the Mesa Typewriter Exchange. It’s close enough that I could walk or bike there. But I don’t. My typewriters may be classified as portable. By weight, they are barely that compared to the MacBook Pro I used to write on. And still do when travelling.
The power of the internet masses state that the average word count for a typed page, double-spaced, is 250 words. That breaks down the 50,000 word goal to a small 6.66 pages per day. Rounding up to 7 to be super safe. Of course, there were lots of disclaimers and other statistics they based this number on. Since I enjoy math and try not to rely on facts at face value on the internet, I did my own count. Scanning in eight pages of a story I have been typing with the margins set where I will type at until I am forced to change. It’s set somewhere near 3/4 inch on the left, and averages that on the right depending on the word. This gave me 2,758 words that my iPhone detected using the text scan feature. Since I did not need accurate word reading, just the spacing between them I did not go through and correct what few words it detected wrong. After more math you probably don’t care about, I end up with 5 pages per day.
Of course I could cut that in half if I did not use double-space. When I first began using my typewriters, I only used single-space, then I learned why to use double and it was a game changer. First, it’s just easier to read and not lose your place. Second, and biggest reason, is editing. It gives you space to edit the crap out of your drafts. Room to write whole new thoughts, make corrections, random notes to think about later. And it’s all readable later when you retype it. Handwriting aside. There is no way I could effectively revise anything that was done single-spaced.
