Need some auditory feedback?

I’m going to really date myself here, but I first started writing before personal computers were invented and the only technology available to me as a kid back in the 1970s was (gasp!) pencil and paper. If you were really adventurous you could use a pen, but you had better be pretty darn sure of yourself.

I remember how excited I was to receive my first typewriter, a Royal manual, when I was about eleven or twelve years old. It made me feel like a real writer to have that keyboard in front of me. In the computer age, almost no one uses a typewriter anymore, and why would they? Computers are so convenient and they don’t need ribbons, carbon paper, or “Liquid Paper“, now just the delete key will do. Despite this, I have to say I miss the sounds of a typewriter’s keys clacking on the platen when pounding out a story. It’s an auditory stimulus that really makes me feel as if I’m accomplishing something as I type away. Remember, typewriters were the cutting edge technology with which Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Capote, and ninety-five percent of the great nineteen and twentieth century writers recorded their words. I feel a kinship to generations of authors when I hear a clickity-clack in response to my keystrokes.

If you can relate to this feeling and would like to hear the sound of a typewriter without abandoning twenty-first century technology, you might like Typewriter Keyboard 5.0 for Mac. It runs in the background of your computer and gives you realistic typewriter sounds as you type. You can even customize it with your own sounds if you’re so inclined. If you prefer to not to hear the keyboard while surfing the net, but only when typing your novel, just click mute. So far I’m really enjoying this ‘blast from the past’ and find it’s helping my productivity tremendously. Maybe you will too.

typewriter
From Wikipedia

a mechanical or electromechanical device with a set of “keys” that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. From their invention before 1870 through much of the 20th century, typewriters were indispensable tools for many professional writers and in business offices. By the end of the 1980s, word processor applications on personal computers had largely replaced the tasks previously accomplished with typewriters.