Happy National Typewriter Day!

Quick question: Have you ever written on a typewriter?

An actual, clackity manual typewriter that requires you to pound on the keys, there is no delete key and the only version of “save” is rolling in a fresh piece of paper?

There was an old manual typewriter at our house when I was a kid and I loved playing with it.

There was the very specific zchwit, zchwit sound of rolling the paper onto the — what do you call that thing that held the paper?

I loved the “ping” that would ring out when you reached the right margin. What a great progress marker. “Ping! You filled an entire line! Good for you!”

Typewriters required a lot of energy and movement. And something close to danger. You were committing words to paper that were very difficult to undo.

Change your mind? Well, now you’ll have to overtype or paint on the White-Out or dramatically rip out the whole d*mn sheet of paper and crumple it in a ball.

As I write this now, almost nothing is moving except my fingers and the cursor.

If I change my mind, I can backspace, delete and cut to my heart’s content, never having to worry about starting over with a whole new piece of paper. Obliterating my words is easy and accessible. Maybe too easy.

Tinker. Tinker. Tinker.

We lose something when we “word process” on our computers or tablets.

We release that sense of finality and tinker around on our drafts for days (or weeks or months or even years!) because it’s so easy to do.

Our words are just sitting there in their impermanence, ready to be changed at a moment’s notice. That’s great for typos, but not so great for our messaging.

First drafts, second drafts, third drafts: all helpful for clear, clean messaging.

Beyond that, you make editing not a tool of improvement, but a tool of procrastination.

Because putting your words — and putting yourself — out there is a vulnerable thing to do. It can feel so much safer to hide.

Or tinker.

You probably can make that blog post better with a review and rewrite or two. But at some point you have to ask yourself:

Am I making this draft better

or

am I making this draft different?

Not to mention the fact that you’re training yourself to believe “messaging takes too long and requires way too much energy.”

That is not entirely true, especially if you’re using a solid framework to stay on message and a bulletproof process to stay on task.

These are things your old-fashioned typewriter would remind you of every time you zchwit-zchwitted a new piece of paper onto the roller. But since you probably don’t have one, let me do it for you:

Resist the urge to tinker around on your drafts forever.

Get your message out there!

“Well Said Wednesday” is a blog by Barbara Govednik, Founder, Content Coach & Message Strategist of 4.23 Communication. It’s published every other Wednesday…ish.