So, Typie is back up and running, all he needed was a new typewriter ribbon. And he now has a little brother, pictured above is my new Hermes Rocket. A tiny little typewriter with a pretty good pedigree, you can find tons of pictures of them with famous authors and newspaper people, though I take it with a grain of salt, the Rocket was the height of portable typewriters for a long time. Could be that they loved the little beast, but more likely it was just the best option. I bought it really cheap, but it was not functional. After a quick check, and some online searches, I fixed it. It needed to have the space bar lever reset, and the keys needed to be adjusted on where they were hitting the platen (the rubber part that the hold the paper and the keys hit).
Well, we have just about recovered from the vacation. Taking a trip with a six-year-old, two grandmothers and a grandfather, along with myself and the wife, is an adventure. But, Puerto Rico was amazing, we were a block and a half from the beach and the surf was rough, but fun to play in. Just perfect for daddy and the six-year-old to play in. Think the wife liked it, she is already making plans to go back next year for Christmas.
So, as is the custom of our modern era, here are my thoughts on the past year and a few for the year going forward.
two-thousand and twelve
Lots and lots of changes, don’t know if I would call them changes, but more like the process that happens after change has happened. Maybe it is the process of finding new habits, haunts, friends, etc. And my second year of becoming a hermit continued. Both the wife and the kid are loving it here, and I am coming to like it a lot, too. Also, found grubstreet, which helps feed my writing/learning need. Found a bit of time to write as well. Nothing finished, but a lot, and I mean a lot of partially finished stuff now. Which I feel good about. I see everything I write as part of a process even the failures and missteps. Work continues on well, I am happy there and they seem to be happy with me.
two-thousand and thirteen
I try not to focus on the failures of the past year, rather I try to look at what I would like to make better in the next year. In the last year I have acquired two typewriters, a writing program, two fountain pens and a preferred type of mechanical pencil (0.9mm), but I have yet to finish a story or a novel to a point where I am satisfied with it. It is the first refuge of the unsure craftsman to always be tweaking, messing with, touching, tools, in some sort of hope that a better tool will improve the end product. I can craft a story, and maybe it will be worth reading, but I want to be able to craft stories that people love, that inspire, at the very least enjoy. So, that is what I need to work towards. Again, my goal is the same, send something out for publication and get it published. That being one sort of validation I seek, an expert (editor, in this case) being willing to pay for the product of my efforts. Just the first level of validation. After that, the goal stays the same, just longer works and more of them. The other thing I would like to do is reduce the size of my in-boxes. Not mail in-boxes, but my stacks and collections of things to read and/or consume. Trying to increase the quality of what I consume is my preferred way to do this, but there are going to be some cuts closer to the bone.
happy new year, by the way.
off to do some real work and maybe write some,
-luke