If you read the story again you will see the fornits are not to blame! It was the belief systems that were dangerous, just as belief systems can also be beneficial. It’s just the darker side of the same idea you promote the lighter side of.

I’ve written similar things, not quite the same but similar, in those moments I felt like I really gelled with my machine. That’s a good poem. Mine are up on my blog.

Oh, yes, those pesky fornits. King invented these to scare off the competition. Writers are often a gullible lot, prone to speculation and dark thoughts. What better way to feed these fears than invent a scary creature that’ll drive the writer to madness. While the forces of darkness are real, I tend to favor the favorable aspects of the typewriter.

Agreed. Unless of course your covering the Grand Prix, in which case bring a Hermes Rocket. it travels much better to Monaco.

Thanks for sharing, James! Convincing evidence of all that has been posited. Whether you believe in the soul theory of objects or tapping an inspired subconscious entity, there is little doubt the forces of creative expression are best channeled through these singular devices of creation.

During one of our winter storms last year here in Maine, I was staring at my L.C. Smith in the quiet morning dark and she was staring at me and wanting me to write something about her.

This is what we both wrote:

IF ONLY WORDS COULD SPEAK

Black bulk bulging
with metal, on metal, with oiled metal
gears and springs
and rolled rubber.

Aching.

Black letters, prisoners
to white circles of silver and glass,
staring at fingers,
undecided.

Aching.

The cold forge craving words to
slam something…
soft
on the paper.

Warming things.

I certainly am closer to believing the machine itself has a soul and desires to write, than I am that there are muses external or ghostly residue. A lot of what you said resonates strongly with me. Perhaps it is because I was an only child and grew up talking to my toys… I feel my typewriters deserve a great respect and I have caught myself whispering to them here and there!
Maybe this post and these comments are just the product of a strong desire and fantasy in all of us for our machines to be alive. As writers we often create souls and history from thin air.

We writers, and even those who do not write, can feel the traces in these old writing machines; indeed, we can nearly see them, and hear them if we gaze upon the hulking metal and those alluring key tops long enough. The machine doesn’t just sit there. She’s asking you to take her out for a spin.

I have a small collection of 10 machines, all portables and all stunning to look at and to use, and in truth, it’s hard to say if I prefer the Alpina, or Torpedo 18b, or Erika 5, or Erika M, or Swissa Junior, or Underwood Portable Three-Bank or, or, or…since they each are heavenly to write with.

But the moment my fingers touched the glass key tops of the L.C. Smith No. 8 circa 1918 sitting on the shelf at Cambridge Typewriter Co., there was no doubt she would be my eleventh machine, and what the Holy Grail of writing machines felt like. With the patented ball bearings in the type bars, you can just blow, and you are typing.

My L.C. Smith has her own writing table and she asks me to take her for a spin every day, and she is the machine through which I go on many journeys because I just can’t resist her. And why should I?

Maybe she only wrote invoices and business tasks. Maybe there were letters or stories from others who found her. Maybe she was a piece of curiosity in someone’s room. One thing is certain about my L.C. Smith: she was made for paper and ink and human hands.

Every writer who hears the stories and feels the traces in these cold forges should have a standard sitting on her own table so you can both go out for the ride of your lives…

In my opinion, anyone who has the space on his or her desk should use a standard rather than a portable. I love many of my portables, but don’t bring a sedan, no matter how sporty, to the Grand Prix.

That’s my two cents.

McFeats (Untimely Typewriter)