Typecast: Honk Not

I might add, laying on the horn does not excuse the drivers themselves from slowing down and using a bit of caution at the crossing, let alone entitle them to speed up and blast through, as many of them do.

Type Tweet: Merry Christmas!

Getting Fired Up for NaNoWriMo!

(Yes, I need to do some adjusting to center everything before November.)

I'll likely do most of my writing at the [too messy for public consumption] writing desk across from it, but it's nice to have Options.  Especially for doing some free writing if I get stuck or need a change of pace.  Or if I just want to be really noisy and irritate the dog for awhile.

NaNoWriMo 2013: In Which I Cheerfully Predict Washout

A new current mess-o'-pencils photo for ya...

But given as how it's a just-for-fun year, I can see embracing whatever methods I feel like using on a given day, whether that be pencil, fountain pen, typewriter (I have scads of scrap paper after cleaning up for the office move!), Alphasmart, or even (gasp!) this vulgar beast, the personal computer.

What about you? Are you planning to be a purist of one stripe or another? If so, what sort? And, if you feel like sharing, what are you writing about? Me, I'm either going to completely rewrite my magic detective story(*3) from a few years back or go with the new idea which hit me in August, and which I'd rather not give away entirely. In essence, it has to do with avatars, but in a way I've not seen used before.

Looking forward to getting my hands dirty, whether that be literally (in the case of pens, pencils and typewriter ribbons) or figuratively! Hope to see many of you join me! (*4)

*1 What in the world is this "Eucharistic Adoration" thing? The info here is pretty well laid out. My parish actually has "perpetual" adoration, meaning that someone is there praying before the Blessed Sacrament 24 hours a day. We take it in turns, and Wednesdays from 6-7AM are my hour. 

 *2 Incidentally, for you Catholics out there, I can't recommend Fulfillment of All Desire enough: it tells the stories of some of the greatest Doctors of the Church (St. Augustine, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales and St. Therese of Lisieux) and lays their writings out in parallel, with commentary to help make them all approachable and easy to understand. It's a lovely book. My Dad went through a phase where he handed out copies to pretty much anyone who stood still long enough (and more, via mail), and in reading it, I can see why. 

 *3 It's a noir style mystery novel! With magic! And taxis! And frogs and dragons and stuff! You should totally buy it if I ever finish it! Which is doubtful! 

 *4 For any of you who would like to add me as a friend on the NaNoWriMo site, please feel free! My username is RosieCotton.

***Typecast courtesy of the Robo-typeface Olympia SM-9 which came to me from Richard Polt by way of notagain at Manual Entry.***

Type Tweet: Awkward

Fire and Ice

Little nod to Valentine's Day.

On Awaiting Inspiration

Written on January 31st, which means I made my writing goal for the month, muse or no muse!

Shadow of Life

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to try to finish at least two poems and one short story a month. I've pretty much broken all my resolutions already, and this one is liable to be no exception...but I did at least manage to finish this one poem: actually one I kind of started writing around Christmas, and rather on the cynically morose side. Still, at least it means I've completed one third of my resolution for the month!

Type Tweet: On Using Real People as Models for Fictional Characters

Type Tweet: A Brief Lesson in Driving Grammar

Without them, we can't quite be sure if you're starting or stopping or slowing down, or quite where you're going.

Type Tweet: Watch That Last Step

Only now I discover that true Tweets are actually limited to 140 characters *including* spaces...something I didn't know since I've never really done the true type of Twitter. I'll attempt further brevity in future.

Type Tweet: Ranch

Rolling Twitter old school.

Mandolin Cafe Type-In (Tacoma)

A few of us met up at lunch time today for an International Typewriter Appreciation Month type-in. Thank you, Peter, for organizing this!

Slightly messy type-cast, but such is the nature of the beast, for me, at least.

I spent quite awhile writing with fountain pen, too, enjoying the sunlight streaming through the window. I don't think we were supposed to get sunshine today. To me, it was an unexpected treat.

And then I got to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law and little nieces and nephew. Interestingly enough, one of the topics that came up (and I wasn't even the one to raise it) was the joy of getting a personal letter in this day and age. Which makes me feel guilty yet again about having pretty much ceased and desisted in the practice. I resolve to do better. Again.

Here is the photo I mentioned.

Typecast: No Parallels

An Open Letter to the Search Bots of the World (Concerning Haters)

And I would like to add, as search bot bait, poem haters poetry hater h8ter. Mmmkay?

Tell me I'm not the only one to get some odd repeated search terms!

Of course, *after* I write this rant, it occurs to me that maybe these people are all dyslexic, and really are looking for poetry haters or some such thing. Whatever. I'm determined to have my rant, nonetheless!

Too Much

Some reflections, partially drawn from my recent brief blog hiatus (the virtual type-in dragged me back...;)

Virtual Type-In!

Eek...I go away a couple of days, and blogger has completely changed the interface on me?

Anyhow...today, we made typosphere history: at noon PDT, Adwoa, Richard Polt, notagain, and I met up for a completely virtual type-in via a "hangout" (video chat) on Google+. It wasn't flawless--in particular I had some trouble hearing Adwoa some of the time, and anytime we all typed or talked at once, it was hard to hear everyone. Still...I'm pretty impressed at how well it worked! Here are my messy, messy notes from the event. Aside from the typos, I also managed to drip water on them. Yay for the brutal honesty of typecasting!

There were quite a few other typewriters in attendance, besides those mentioned in my typecast. I sort of gave up trying to keep track of them all. Peter (notagain) has an interesting Noiseless (love the sound that thing makes!), and Adwoa, of course, had all sorts of cute and colorful typewriters. Fun seeing them all! There were also quite a number of feline attendants.

I believe others planned to stop by but missed out--we were there an hour, but then some needed to get going. I think some folks were going to meet up again at midnight PDT, for anyone who'd like to stop by!

Darkness and Light (whole bunch of type-cast poetry)

I have a tendency to take things much too much to heart. Last Saturday afternoon, someone removed a comment I'd made on one of their Facebook posts. I can't come up with any sort of reason why, and I was too shy to ask. I was so mortified by the experience, trying to imagine what they must have *thought* I meant, that I was practically non-functional for the rest of the weekend.

Things like being removed from a friend's blogroll paralyze me, even while intellectually I know I've talked about a lot of different things over the years, and since I haven't broken things out into strictly compartmentalized blogs and I bounce around a lot (an understatement), some people will drift away. I try to figure out what it was I did that offended, and beat myself up for imagined wrong-doings. I've also found myself stat-watching, fretting over how many page-loads I get or don't get.

And all of this is just silly. If I'm taking these things so seriously, I think maybe I need to take a step back from this whole Internet thing--or at least the blogging portion thereof--for awhile, take a deep breath, get some perspective, do some writing that will only be seen by me instead of jumping up and down trying to get attention, and then half the time not knowing how to take it if I do get some. Oh, and maybe catch up on letters for once--what a concept.

I'll be back, probably sooner than I intend to be, but I'm taking a vacation, at least for a few weeks, maybe a month or so.

So...hey, if I'm gonna go out for a bit, I'll go out with a bang... First off, here are a few poems I actually wrote a number of years ago, but refrained from posting because of their darkness. I'll count these as my final two vignettes for Art of the Letter's July challenge.





And something a bit more lighthearted--a little poem I wrote back in the late 90s, when I was in Germany in the Air Force. I like this one. It makes me smile.

View From Inside the Kaleidescope

This is the way my mind works.

Double Vision: one image, two poems

Two very different poems, both inspired by broken glass I encountered on a walk.

Bitter:


Sweet: