For a few years I have passed time by dreaming about the clickety-clack of a typewriter under my fingers while expressively typing my thoughts and day to day whims. While I love my Mac and all the technology it encompasses, as evidenced by the ability to begin this blog, there is just something romantic about an author with a typewriter. Case in point, in one of my favorite movies,
Love Actually, a sweet scene is featured between author Jamie, played by Colin Firth, and Portuguese speaking Aurelia, played by Lucia Moniz. Jamie is typing next to a pond outside of his vacation cottage, when Aurelia lifts his mug to tidy up. The result is a stack of freshly typed pages being scattered by the wind into the freezing water. Of course, Aurelia strips down to save the pages from the pond, causing Jamie to match her heroism by jumping into the water himself. The audience is reminded that love can overcome communication barriers and surpasses the need for the spoken word, and yet, what sticks in my mind is the image of Firth, sitting by the water with his typewriter. With a typewriter at my beck and call, I have envisioned myself a modern Jo from Louisa May Alcott's
Little Women, typing away, filling sheets of play dialogue, lists of daily to-dos, recipes, quotes, poetry, crafts, and doing so through an instrument free of the world's distraction of the internet and whose sole aim and purpose is to produce typed words- period.
Fortunately for me, my husband listens. He like to say that he doesn't just hear me, "he HEARS me". And therefore, my little hints and musings did not go unnoticed. On Christmas morning I excitedly unwrapped a brand new
Nakajima WPT-150 electronic typewriter. And while I do recognize the irony of typing a blog on my Mac, about my typewriter, the truth is that I have found a void in typewriter instruction and support on the web: enter, the idea for a typewriter blog.
So, let this be a space for all things related to the love of typewriters and writing. Hopefully, I can share some tips and solutions for typewriter use, present ideas for typed gifts and crafts, and ultimately give encouragement and inspiration for writers of all kinds.
Let's celebrate the joy of typed words together: welcome to my blog!
Write on! Melissa Johnson
Welcome to the Typosphere! (:
ReplyDeleteIf you do end up actually typecasting (using typecast as your blog text) I'd recommend using a 3 1/2" column for Elite face machines and a 4" column for Pica typescript. If you scan and crop to those sizes, you get big, legible typescript that retains the inksplotches, ribbon texture and quirks of typewritten text. Godspeed!