Alright, my comrades, faithful friends, and those poor souls who suffer through the drudgery of my banal existence who stumble upon by most random of musings, I have news: I, yes, this guy, has come upon a typewriter.
Now, I realize I just lost you, but understand this: the typewriter, is but the Holy Grail and ultimate muse for those in the writing craft. It's like stumbling across the Sistine Chapel in its blank slate and being told "Have at it. Do what you do". The blank slate of all insane(ly brilliant) minds who have birth most, if not all, of the classics you were forced to read in high school. And, let me tell you, it's a thing of beauty.
It's manual. As Ernest Hemingway put is, you beat your heart and soul into this and a book or two comes out. You sacrifice your entire being and sanity and the most precious thing that will far outlive you will come forth. There's nothing taken for granted with this thing. It weighs like a brick. You beat all the buttons and have to physically push the bar back and forth. I have dreamt about such a masochistic piece of archaic machinery since...well, the writing bug struck me back in junior high. Since I broke out my Dad's old typewriter (which was electric, but still far from forgiving), started generating stories that were absolute rubbish, and enjoyed every facet and second of it. The sound. The smell. The effort into creating a masterpiece (which, my early works were anything but). And, above all else, the pounding of the keys. And now, waiting in an absolutely terrible second hand store, is the magnificent piece of machinery that shall become mine.
You see, while it's pen and paper that brought forth the founders of the curse, I mean blessing, of this craft that I have been born with, it was those who enslaved themselves to the beast that is the typewriter that were the ones that truly experiences the true beauty and brutality of this instrument of carnal reverence. The crafters of worlds both known and never made. Lives were birthed and died by the madmen (and women) who were possessed and did posses such a common and largely under-appreciated device.
Now, if it sounds like I'm "fan girling" (yes, it's a term, and yes, I'm using it appropriately) over this, understand something: typewriters aren't all that easy to find. Especially the manual ones. And, when you do stumble across them, they're bloody expense. I am crazy fortunate to not have either of these circumstances be the case. And, really, the fact that I seriously (not literally, though) stumbled across it makes me feel like it's a sign. Whether is actually is or not is not the question here. The point is that it is going to be mine and thus forth shall begin my cracked path towards becoming a truly published author. And, you best believe, I'm making copies upon copies before I submit anything. The last thing I need is for someone to steal the one copy I spent months, if not years, to create.
So, yes, while it is but the most mundane of news, words cannot express how genuinely pleased I am for this to enter my life.
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