I have a typewriter. After reading about them and blogging about them here, I asked for one as a Christmas gift, and started searching. I had thought I would get any old model, but after a bit of browsing on Ebay, I became more selective about design, period and portability. I decided on a Olivetti Lettera 22, a 1959 specimen, which had great write-ups as a design classic. I secured my model, complete with immaculate case and vintage Croxley script paper.

Here it is:

It’s a thing of beauty. Compact, well-designed, a lovely colour. It’s a great example of form and function. And some thoughtful soul had posted the entire instruction manual on a Flickr page.  It’s much easier to type on than I imagined, though my overzealous bashing does cause the keys to stick sometimes. Not to mention the overtyping to try to correct my plentiful mistakes. Still, I have started a short story draft on it, and it feels like exactly the right medium for the early stages of this particular tale.

I thought I might ultimately aim for something like this:

Too much?