Crayoncast Revisited

Couldn't resist trying this again, making a few adjustments to my method based on MPClemens' last post. I still used a hair dryer on high heat to meld the wax to the paper, rather than the more adventurous toaster oven baking method...but it worked OK! Bernard is MADE for color casting.



Ungh...ironically, I do have a ton of uncorrected tyspos in 'ere. But I guess my point isn't utterly lost.

Gargantuan Greatness and Crayon Craziness

As some of you already spotted over on Flickr, I picked up yet another desktop this weekend. As I've mentioned, the little Hermes 3000 is probably my most comfortable typewriter for just plain typing, especially for long stretches, and when I found out about a Hermes Ambassador in the area, I had to at least take a look, right? In spite of the fact that it was an hour away. Right? Right. And we all know how these things end.



I'll spare you the long narrative and just say that it was apparently in a desk the seller had acquired. He had a TON of old office furniture and electronics and general junk in a mobile home out back...dunno his whole story. Salvage, maybe. Most of it was ugly, broken old stuff, but then...there was this Ambassador, looking very grand in the midst of it all. The ribbon was dry, it was elite type when I'd prefer pica, I couldn't figure out what all the buttons were in order to test them all, but...I couldn't just leave it there, now could I?



It is magnificent. Really. It's a 3000 on steroids. I mean...just look at those big honkin' buttons! Gotta love that. And, like the 3000, it doesn't need much to drive it. You either love or hate the Hermes feel, I think. They have rather short key travel, almost like an electric typewriter, and no slack to the keys. Very, very precise feeling, very light--which can feel mushy to some, especially coming from, say, an Olympia SM-9. I like 'em both, but for marathon typing sessions, I'll take a Hermes. The Ambassador does have a heftier feel than the 3000. Kinda in between the 3000 and most other brands. As in...magnificent. Did I already say that?

It still had its carbon ribbon thing (it has an extra set of spools inside and a second vibrator for that), but I set that aside. And I had to cannibalize a ribbon from the 3000 for now--have some new ones arriving tomorrow from Scan Tracker, so I'll have to report back on the quality of those ribbons. This is my first order with them. They were slightly pricier than some other sellers...but I ordered on Sunday and they shipped Monday. That raises them up a great deal in my mind!

Been working away at both editing previous short stories and writing a new one, so it's getting a work out.

On another note, MPClemens' post about Color Casting made a lot of us nostalgic for crayons and other childhood art supplies. Being me, I couldn't wait to try this out, so I stopped for crayons on my way home, and attempted to colorcast a new poem. I'm not sure it's entirely legible, but it was an interesting project! I'll likely try again. I used a hair dryer on the wax for the first half, and typed that half with the regular ribbon setting. The second half, I didn't bother with the hair dryer, and used the stencil setting. It came out darker, but I also ended up with extra wax rubbed off on other parts of the page, so it's pretty messy looking. I think the best result would be to heat the page to fuse the wax good, then use the stencil setting. When I could see the letters, I was trying to push too hard and otherwise kept messing up and hitting the space and causing skips. For the most part, the stencil setting worked better. Fun stuff, in any case!




Addition: just for clarity, here's the poem again:
I stand on the shore in my solitary state
and across the water watch them:
distant figures on the far shore,
figures of mirth and peace.
The distance obscures,
but in my mind's eye I see them as clear
as if I was in their happy company.
An old man,
silver hair glinting
stands, rough elbows bent,
feet in the sand,
in the dark sand at water's edge
where a blonde child in red
builds towers to the sky:
beautiful misshapen castles
lumpy, bumpy, dripped mud and shell,
bringing beauty to ugliness
as only a child can.
She raises innocent eyes to smile at him;
two generations removed,
she is his own,
his future, his love made new.

I watch
and am blessed in watching
though I hurt:
for what have I been spared
that I am left lonely,
left outside the lives of others
touching corners only,
a circling satellite
adrift in the night sky?
Times there are when I wonder if,
should I be taken, now or time far off,
will there be any to mourn?
What mark have I left, and who
would mark my passing?
My going would be
like the drop of a pebble in these waters,
ripples observed, but scarce noted
before the calm waters smooth over again.
There are no castles on the shore for me,
no child of tomorrow.
Though perhaps it matters not in the vast world that is to come,
in this world, for this I grieve.

Happimess

One of many reasons I love paper...there's just no way I could reproduce this process on-screen!



Some pages have even more comments. And some of them have brackets and arrows every which way. It works for me. And I like that I can always go back and see the original--sometimes I change something that shouldn't be changed. And yes, that's not a full sized piece of paper, for anyone wondering. It's half-sized scrap paper.

In other news...the Classic 12 is officially on the block. Already have one interested party. However, I'm kinda on the path of another one o' those mint green typewriters.

OK, since I'm baring my soul lately, I'll end off with a few semi-religious poems.


Loss


Lifted

Index Card Circa Hack

I've started using the typewriters again heavily, after several months of mostly writing by hand. As a result, I'm using the Circa/Rollabind notebooks again quite a bit. I like that I can put all my typewritten pages in a notebook for easy perusal, and with the knowledge that if one morning I get up and decide to hit the coffee house and write by hand for awhile, I can do that in the same notebook.

In anticipation of November and for my own use now, I wanted a way to store/display index cards in the notebook. The ideal solution would probably be some of Levenger's Dock-it pages, but I'm on a Levenger fast for the time being, and nice as they are, I'm still not sure they're worth the amount it'd cost me to get them, especially with Levenger's high shipping costs factored in. Instead, I came up with this solution.

At Office Depot, I picked up a package of 3-ring binder inserts intended for 3 x 5" photos. They only have four pockets on a page, and only on one side (Levenger's obviously have considerably more, and are far heavier in weight), but cards can face backwards since the page is clear on both sides. Each pocket can hold a decent sized stack of cards.

I trimmed off the side tab with the three holes, reinforced the section next to that with masking tape, and Circa punched. I also had to trim the top of the page a little bit so it wouldn't stick out.



The final result: it works pretty well! I'm proud of myself. And a package of ten pages is under three dollars at Office Depot, for a total of 80 visible pockets, with space for far more cards than are immediately visible. More than likely I'll only add one or two of these to each notebook, and use them primarily for storage of cards related to the story I'm currently working on--character sketches, items and events to remember to include, maps, etc. So long as I can see the top card in each stack, I'm good.

One more view:


In other news, I'm most of the way through the first draft of Yet Another Short Story, and Stinky and I dashed down the first few paragraphs of the one after that this evening. Hey, if you're gonna write smoky bar scenes, Stinky is the typewriter to go to. He's had a hard life, and he knows his way around.

Saturday thrift shop scores, with blame to go around

Did the rounds at Goodwill today. I found what I was looking for (a couple of outfits for church), and then did some poking though the chaos toward the back of the store, with some success!





The first bit of this particular CROP is a bit discolored, as you may or may not be able to see, but I think it's OK further in. I may just pass these off to my little nieces to use for coloring (we had a lot of fun with continuous feed paper when I was little--great for making your own "film strip"), but I had to try!

Here's the ink. Nothing too fancy, but it's not available anymore. And I do like the brightly colored (if plain) packaging!






No typewriters today, but you know, I'm kind of glad of it. If I see them, it's hard to walk away, and I still need to pare down. It's fun having some variety, but I have that already. And really, there isn't much that can top my current little group of keepers. That's rather a nice feeling. If I found a pica Hermes 3000, all bets would be off--I've said that before. But I'm awful blessed.

Oh, and during the car ride to and from and here, there and everywhere, I was listening (over and over) to The Innocence Mission's "Befriended," which is available from Amazon's MP3 downloads store, which made it way too easy to buy. This purchase was Cheryl/Strikethru's fault, as one of the tracks on that album was used as the background music for her recent video shoot of Ace Typewriter. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

One more little poem--a bit out of my usual zone. Started with the prompt "electric door".

Random updates

My Silent Type submission is now in the mail, beyond recall. Every time I think about it, I practically break out in a cold sweat. The poems I've started posting recently are about the closest I've come to revealing what I consider "real" writing--goofy short stories that really aren't very serious don't count. And every time I try to do serious, it usually comes out sappy or overwrought or childish or all of the above, if not worse. In the past, I've posted poems here and immediately yanked them out of fearful self-consciousness, and this whole journal thing is bringing out fearful self-consciousness writ large. I actually sent both a poem and a short story--I figure if the story is too horrible to print, maybe the poem is OK. But I'm pretty sure one or both should never see the light of day again. Maybe I should stick to slightly cynical silliness.

I used the SCM Classic 12 for one of my two submissions since it partially inspired the idea; but I was reminded of how much we don't quite get along over anything but short typing sessions. It's sad, really. It works just fine except for needing a minor adjustment to the shift position, and I like its typeface better than pretty much anything else I have: pica, nice open letters without anything quirky about them. A Courier typeface, pretty much. Very pleasing to the eye. And I have no accuracy issues with it. However, something about the feel of it rubs me the wrong way after a brief period. After finishing typing my short short story one last time, I switched to the Hermes 3000 to type my poem, and I could have kissed the little thing. Not that I'd ever do something as silly as kissing a typewriter. Ahem. But it really is almost sinfully pleasurable to write on. I'm reminded of why I enjoyed NaNo '07 so much, when that little guy and I cranked out four or five or more pages a day together.

But I think the Classic 12 will be finding a new home. I'll probably post it on Craigslist in the next little bit. It deserves love and I don't have any to give it. Why I should feel so differently about its little sister the Galaxie, I have no idea. There is a difference in feel, though, similar as they *should* be. In a way, the 12 feels more solid...but I feel like I'm fighting it every step of the way.

In other news...I'm back to paper for writing longer works and poetry and most everything else. The netbook is an awesome little editing and transcribing machine and I had good luck with some short story writing, but when I attempted to move my current novel in progress to it, I almost immediately did what I usually do with digital writing of any semi-serious sort: I started writing and rewriting and rewriting the same scene over and over. And contrary to some popular opinions, repeated drafts don't necessarily get better and better, particularly when you delete one whilst writing the next. Eventually that whole scene went all herky-jerky and forced, and I gave up in disgust. I've gone back to my usual writing and crossing out on paper and have almost recovered, but I'm essentially using none of the words I wrote on the computer. So much for saving time by starting out in digital format!

I'm still loving the $2.50 pocket briefcase thingie from Staples. I couldn't find it when I was getting ready this morning and about had a heart attack. Don't want to go without it. I thought the fact that it's open would mean I'd never use it, but instead, it seems less fussy than the full wallet, and I'm using it constantly for lists and ideas and poems and addresses and anything else that needs scribbling. I've really switched over fully to index cards for all on-the-go or short writing at this point. Love that when I get home I can drop them into the appropriate category in my big card box (Staples has nifty snap-together 1000 card boxes for $5!), toss any I no longer need, and grab a new stack of blanks to keep going. I think I'll declare myself the Index Card Queen. I kinda doubt the title is taken.

Procrastination by means of poetry

Observation one: I've probably been listening to too much opera. These ain't exactly cheery, are they?

Observation two: poems do almost diddly-squat to up your word count. They do give you pretty much instant gratification, however, unlike your average novel.

Observation three: I couldn't come up with decent titles to most of what I write if you held a gun to my head.

Untitled #1:

---

Untitled #2:

Link: Confessions of a Computer Hater

I've long been a fan of Peter Kreeft, a Catholic writer, philosopher and professor at Boston College and one of the world's leading experts on the writings of CS Lewis. He has a knack for making the esoteric understandable and logical. And now I have another reason to like him: he's a typewriter kinda guy. My favorite quotes:

Despite my ordeal, I had not lost hope. "My name is Peter," I told myself, "and the Hell of Gates will not prevail against me." After all, after a mere twelve years of Herculean labors, I have actually figured out how to use Microsoft Word. Here's the secret: You must trick the computer. If it knows you're indenting, or paragraphing, or numbering, it will correct you. Only by doing something else entirely will the computer give you what you really want.

I have been there. Ooooh, I have been there. And I'm supposed to be a techie. Yes, I know how to work around Word, but I hate it that I have to do so.

And, of course, the money quote:

As for me, I'm done with it. I've found my way out with a relic as rare as a chastity belt: a beautiful little manual typewriter. It has no will, no devious designs, no nefarious stratagems. It's the honest, obedient slave the Industrial Revolution was intended to create. It's content to be my creature, and I adore it. Of course it takes longer to use than a computer, but who cares? Time ceases to matter when you're in love.

Inane Monday Night Typecast: Typewriter Bunnies

For the TV deprived or non-Western, here's the commercial I was referring to. WARNING: it's really, really catchy. "Yippee yi yay, mini sirloin burrrrrgers--hyah!"

The fact that I'm watching this while La Boheme plays in the background kind of adds...something. I'm just not sure what.

This, that, and the other

1. For my follow index card aficionados: I was at Staples today, and as usual went and poked through the odds and ends in the clearance rack. The local one is currently clearing out all their Buxton index card jotter and wallet type things, for the princely sum of $2.50. I'm very happy with my International Pocket Briefcase, which works as a sort of clutch for me (I thank God for the individual with the initals MSR who sent this thing back, thus enabling a cheapskate like me to score a Levenger leather item for less than they'd usually charge for shipping...), but I still picked up the Buxton jotter. It's just a writing surface with room for three or four stacked cards and two pockets behind it for storage and organization of maybe ten or fifteen more (like Levenger's Shirt Pocket Briefcase). It's thin enough to fit nicely in the back pocket of a pair of jeans--something the International just can't manage, with its extra space for credit cards and cash and all. If any of you have been looking for an easy way to carry and write on index cards, get thee to a Staples.

2. I am official finding brushing my teeth half a dozen times a day to be very tedious. I've also decided that braces feel rather as though you have a circuit board mounted in your mouth, soldering points side out. Any of my fellow computer techy types who have ever raked knuckles across the backs of one of those suckers whilst probing computer innards will understand what I mean. They do give you this nifty wax stuff to put on the prickliest parts--it's rather like wax lips, or those wax bottles filled with unnaturally colored sugar water. Anyone else remember those? I wonder if they still sell 'em. Probably not. They were probably declared a choking hazard in the 90s. How did any of us manage to grow up?

EDIT: Found this site, which carries all sorts of old candies and toys, including wax lips and wax bottles. Also fangs and mustaches. Cool.... I'm not sure what I'd do with 24 of 'em...but I guess it's nice to know they're out there. I feel better about the world in general, ya know?

3. I have been doing heavy transcribing, and thus haven't written a thing in several days. For previous hand-written stories, I've generally stopped every four or five thousand words to digitize, but with last year's NaNo, I got behind and stayed behind, and now I suddenly am faced with the task of typing in some 80,000 words, at a guess. Well...60,000 now, after a TON of work. It's to the point where I'm really not editing as I go--I'm just trying to get it in so I can start mashing it around and organizing it. I didn't worry about organization or redundant scenes or anything else as I was writing--I just charged ahead.

Transcribing on this scale is a pain in the neck. But it does dump me back into the depths of my story. And some of the writing is actually not bad. I don't think I can write that way on the computer. On the computer, I tend to be more flippant, more wordy; it's very hard to write meaningful dialog or soul-felt, serious thoughts. It may be that I just need more practice. It may be that I should just get better about transcribing as I go instead of being a lazy bum and putting it off for six months. I'm not sure. Part of my problem may also be that I love the physical act of writing with my fountain pens on paper, or on my typewriters, and I make excuses as to why I should do things the hard way. I wish I had an objective way to measure. It sure would be cool if I could write a scene or a story, forget that I'd written it but not the *idea* of it, and write it with another medium so I could compare the two. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to do that....