On Typewriters, Tomato Soup, and the Courage to Begin

Underwood Typewriter 1933

Maybe five. That’s the number of times I’ve watched the film, Finding Forrester—a story about a reclusive literary giant, William Forrester (played by Sean Connery), and his unlikely protégé, Jamal Wallace (played by Rob Brown)—a gifted Bronx teenager suddenly thrust into the spotlight.

These two collide by chance and ignite each other’s courage, ambition, and voice through the act of writing.

A few days after they share an enlightening bowl of tomato soup together, Forrester hauls out two ancient typewriters and sets them on a table opposite of each other.

My grandmother, “Gramma,” who mostly raised me, had a typewriter that was even older, manufactured in 1933: an Underwood, gun-metal gray with silver embellishments. It was a thing of remarkable capacities. This Underwood was the very one I used to type out my first literary tome—a story of fairies, dark woods, and giant mushrooms. I was twelve then, and nearly fifty-five years later, I still have this typewriter.

Anyway, here’s where the movie gets really good:

Sitting across from each other, Forrester says to the boy, “Go ahead.”

“Go ahead and what?” Jamal asks.

“Write.”

Forrester bangs away at the typewriter, barely looking at the keys or the paper or the words he’s laying down.

Jamal stares.

“Is there a problem?” asks Forrester.

“No, I’m just thinking.”

“No thinking — that comes later,” says Forrester. “You write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is to write, not to think!”

Sigh.

A single charged exchange with two typewriters, the punching of keys — and suddenly I’m twelve years old again.

My own first attempt at a story all those years ago was a faltering affair. But the bell and zing of the carriage return were intoxicating. The grind of the paper spinning into place. The letters appearing on the page. They spoke to me.

So there I sat, spelling, “There was once a fairy with lavender wings” … one clunky letter at a time.

I wonder if, like me, writers write and artists paint and chefs cook and architects draw to make sense of the world — as if we don’t learn our craft so much as survive our way into it.