Writing

This is how I always imagined writing to be.
A fire crackles and roars in my fireplace. I sit comfortably in my armchair, puffing on a pipe, and jot down my novel — in ink, with a Montblanc fountain pen — into a notebook bound in genuine leather.
It sounds like the beginning of a novel — but it was meant to be my daily writing ritual.
I’ve never smoked a pipe, and I don’t own a fireplace. But it was precisely that deeply cozy feeling — of being at peace with myself and the world — that drove me to write.
That feeling of having arrived.
But the road to this ideal image of writing was rocky — or at the very least, loud.
In the late 1970s, I was allowed to take a typewriting course at an evening school — although, in truth, only the word “evening” really applied.
The course took place, as you’d expect in the Ruhr area, in a pub.
Typewriters — those are devices similar to computer keyboards, only instead of sensors, the keys are connected to small metal arms, each ending in a letter. Press a key, and the arm snaps forward, striking the paper — separated only by an ink-soaked ribbon.
You didn’t need a printer. Or Wi-Fi. Or electricity.
Just you — and the metal.
For anyone who’s never used such a machine, just imagine the storm those keys create when struck at speed.
At fourteen, I was the proud owner of a typewriter clad in bright orange plastic, a shining specimen of classic 1970s design.
A pity I no longer have it — it would be a real eye-catcher for my Instagram feed today.
Back then, only one thing mattered: performance. And performance was measured in time. Or to be more precise: with a stopwatch.
Ready, set, go — and twenty course participants pounded the text into their machines.
It must have sounded like a swarm of hornets crashing into a bass guitar hooked up to an amplifier.
 Sixty minutes of heavy metal.
As for me, I hardly noticed the noise — too focused on my own performance.
After all, the course was meant to give me a small edge over other applicants in the job market.
And then, six months ago, writing returned — quietly, but with determination.