Just the type (writer)

Before we get started, just in case you’re under a certain age, or maybe from another planet, I want to point something out.  When you came to my blog page, you may have noticed that picture at the top of the page.  That’s a typewriter keyboard.  Yep, a typewriter; one of those old-fashioned word processors that can do its job without electricity or wi-fi.  Specifically, it’s my old Olympia SM-9 portable.  It was a beautiful thing to behold.  Mostly white-ish, but with blue-green accents and a good bit of chrome, it was colorful enough to look like a toy, but so packed with German engineering and precision, It was more of a Swiss Army knife.  Alas, no corkscrew.

At one time, it was the jewel of my small collection of typewriters, a collection that started accidentally and grew as my desires changed and as my income would allow.  It was fast, needing only a light touch to get the words onto the page, and it wasn’t just a big, black metal box like a lot of older models.  It was just fun to use. 

Not mine, but one just like it.  

But I didn’t name the blog after it.   Heck, I think I may have sold it before I even started it.   I was looking to start a blog to get my writing out there even though I didn’t really have anything to get “out there” at the time.  I had lots of notes.  Things I started and never finished or things I wrote to save for later, whenever that might be.   With all those fits and starts saved on a hard-drive or notebook, I had plenty of starter material to spark some digital content, and having my own platform necessitated production. In other words, my typing fingers needed to get off their asses.

I had no idea what I’d write about.  Life’s a banquet, as “Auntie Mame” used to say, and I enjoy more than one thing, even if I come back to some of those things more than others, and over and over.  I didn’t want to limit what I’d write by choosing something that tied me to a genre or style.  It had to be something to indicate the eclectic type of writer I’d be.  

See what I did there? 😉

Well, I thought it was cute at the time.  Looking back, I see my output has not managed to keep up with the passing of time. 

I’ve also found myself, as of this writing, between jobs, and while I haven’t been blessed with the copious amounts of spare time that the COVID shutdown gave some of us, I have been trying to get back to my communications background and having more current blog entries are a better portfolio than 10-year-old press releases and promotion material.

Also, I enjoy writing.  Specifically, I enjoy long-form essays, and like everyone in America, or at least on the interwebs, I’d love to write a book.  Someone once said “everyone has one book in them” … and ever since then, everyone seems to have been trying to get one out.  And there are plenty of authors out there ready to sell you their 100 percent guaranteed method for completing your book.  I think if they were being honest, they’d admit that they found it easier and more lucrative to sell a book that promises to make you a writer than it is to write a standalone novel or non-fiction book.  Sell the sizzle, the promise of a steak, instead of the actual steak.

I’ve tried a lot of jobs; had a few stabs at “living the dream”, and not all of them have worked out.  I had the acting dream, the radio announcer dream, and while I had some success with them, I moved on.  Acting didn’t work out… I don’t think I have the vanity to make myself get out there and suffer that way for my art or my heart.  I pursued the radio career for longer, even wound up working at one of the top rated, nationally recognized radio stations.  But like acting, you need to have that vanity to keep pursuing the dream.  Jackie Gleason once said that an actor’s vanity was his courage, that was how they were able to keep going in the face of adversity, and I didn’t have that drive.  I was always part time, never had the urge to move to different markets to keep moving up that ladder.  Plus, I was more about the music.  That’s what I cared about.  I realized much later that the broadcasting business doesn’t want a musician or a music aficionado on the air… they want someone who can transition from songs to promotions to commercials and back while making the audience feel entertained.   It was business, not music.

So my last dream is now writing.   And I wonder sometimes if my inability to get any done is genuinely due to a lack of time (like I tell myself,) lack of talent (which I also tell myself, unfortunately,) or if it’s my way of avoiding the discovery that it’s one more dream that might not work out.

But not writing makes my failure complete.  Even if I try and it goes nowhere, I still need to write.  I do think I have stories to tell, whether they’re fictional or not, I don’t know.

I think ever since I sat down to my dad’s old, red Selectric typewriter and heard him say jokingly “he’s writing the great American novel” that’s been a goal in mind.  My dream path to success.  

But with this blog, and a lot of journaling and ideas in notebooks, it seems more and more of my writing is actually non-fictional, and that really makes you focus on making the mundane interesting.  Either way, you’ve got to hold an audience’s attention, and you can only improve by doing it, so onward I forge.  The internet beasty craves content, and I’m going to pour it all out into the abyss and hope someone sees it. 

But what to write about?

Earlier this year, I caved into my collector’s desire and purchased an old typewriter—a 1957 Royal FP model.   I’d seen one on Facebook Marketplace, but the seller and I were never able to connect.  I’d never heard or seen the model before, but I saw it and liked it.  It had lines like a 55 chevy.  It might wind up painted like one, too. 

The latest acquisition and some cleaning tools.

 

But it sparked my imagination made me think about writing again, about collecting again, putting a new spin on an old hobby by actually restoring the machines. 

What does ANY of this have to do with blogging?  Glad you asked.

This is the next phase of writing, my way of getting back into it; by making content that’s actually related to the name of this blog.  I got back into manual typewriters because I wanted to write more, but I’m going to accomplish that by writing about them, not ON them.  Let’s be honest, despite what Harlan Ellison says about writing on computers, it’s easier.  Easier to edit, easier to correct, to correct course and better say what you mean.   Yes, easier also to blather on and make a great idea seem dull, but that can happen no matter how you write. 

That said, I’m sure I’ll write on some of those lovely old machines... they just call out to me at times, to be used, to be touched. Be prepared for some scanned pages here in the future.

Future topics could include my adventures in learning to repair typewriters.  Individual pieces on each one I own.  That’s going to be the basis, the spark that ignites my creative flames once again.  Finally, my blog title might actually relate to what I write about. 

Sure, I’ll stay eclectic.  I may even go fictional, but right now, expect this high-tech media platform to showcase some thoughtful takes on some very O-L-D technology, because that’s what’s coming.  

If you’ve read my posts before, I hope you’ll stay with me.  I promise I’ll entertain you, either with my ability to tell a story, or by showing you what a geek I can be. 

If you’re new, or you found me because of the promise of “long form essays” on the typewriter revolution, I hope you enjoy the other topics as well. 

Thank you for joining me on my journey, and welcome to the Eclectic Typewriter.