Jack Kerouac and His Typewriters: Machines That Defined a Literary Generation
Jack Kerouac's Typewriters: Fast, Furious, Legendary
Jack Kerouac didn't just use typewriters. He attacked them.
His typewriter wasn't a tool—it was a partner. An accomplice. The thing that could barely keep up with the thoughts pouring out of his head.
The Machines
Kerouac's go-to: the Underwood Portable. Lightweight. Reliable. Could handle the speed.
For longer projects: the Royal Quiet Deluxe. Smooth action. Built to last through marathon sessions.
These weren't just typewriters. They were the only things fast enough to capture spontaneous bop prosody before it evaporated.
The 120-Foot Scroll
The most famous Kerouac story: typing On the Road on a continuous roll of tracing paper. 120 feet long. Three weeks of non-stop typing.
No page breaks. No interruptions. Just pure flow.
Like jazz improvisation, but with a typewriter.
The Philosophy
"I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."
That's Kerouac in a sentence. Urgent. Raw. Honest.
The typewriter enabled that urgency. The physical act of pounding keys mirrored the rhythm of his prose. The tactile feedback matched the syncopated beats of jazz that inspired everything he wrote.
For Kerouac, typing wasn't transcription. It was performance.
His Crew
The Beat Generation ran on typewriters:
Allen Ginsberg: Portable Royals. Wrote Howl on one.
William S. Burroughs: Remington Rand. Naked Lunch.
Neal Cassady: The muse, the inspiration, Dean Moriarty himself.
The Legacy
Kerouac redefined narrative form. Critics complained about his lack of structure. He didn't care.
He influenced Bob Dylan. Hunter S. Thompson. Tom Robbins. An entire generation of writers who wanted to write free.
Why It Matters
Vintage typewriters represent something we've lost: tactile, deliberate creativity. No digital distractions. No undo button. Just you, the machine, and the words.
Kerouac embodied that authenticity.
His typewriters remind us: sometimes the best writing happens when you get out of your own way and just let it flow.
Want to write like Kerouac? Get a typewriter. Remove your inhibitions. And remember rule #29:
You're a Genius all the time.**
Kerouac’s Rules for Writing…
Here are Jack Kerouac's 30 rules for writing, which he titled "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose":
I'll search for Kerouac's 30 rules for writing to give you the accurate list.Let me fetch the complete list from one of these sources.Here are Jack Kerouac's 30 rules for writing, which he titled "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose":
Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
Submissive to everything, open, listening
Try never get drunk outside yr own house
Be in love with yr life
Something that you feel will find its own form
Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
Blow as deep as you want to blow
Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
The unspeakable visions of the individual
No time for poetry but exactly what is
Visionary tics shivering in the chest
In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
Like Proust be an old teahead of time
Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
The jewel centre of interest is the eye within the eye
Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
Accept loss forever
Believe in the holy contour of life
Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
You're a Genius all the time***
Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
These guidelines reflect Kerouac's spontaneous prose style, influenced by jazz bebop and Buddhist meditation concepts.
They're less traditional writing advice and more a philosophy for creative living and uninhibited expression.
Some of them show up in my Screenless Writer Book and other writings.
Classic Typewriter Co.
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