This week, the Typing Assignment was to go for two weeks. This is just as well, as I have been otherwise occupied. My Camp NaNoWriMo activities for July have been somewhat muted this month.
The assignment was related to the following statement: It was a dark and stormy night. Although my piece was not strictly about a dark and stormy night, it was cathartic for me.
I am planning to get caught up with some additional blog posts soon.
Here’s a post NOT related to the Typing Assignments. I know, it’s about time, eh?
When I first started to get into the typing hobby, I decided that typing letters for type-pals was a good way to use my typewriters. I also experienced an interesting phenomenon. When I would bring home a typewriter, one of my cats, Elliott, would immediately jump up on whatever surface the new machine was put on and promptly begin to rub his cheeks on the typewriter, putting his scent on it. He also likes to climb into the top part of the cases of the portable typewriters.
Then I started to use the strange machines. This didn’t deter Elliott, who stuck first his nose and then a paw to try and check out the strange moving parts. This resulted in a few gentle smacks from the typeslugs. The first time, he stopped and looked at me as though saying, “What was that for?” All I could do is laugh. This was the case for the first couple of machines. He has since stopped pawing and sniffing at the moving typeslugs.
In one of the letters I sent to a type pal, I mentioned how Elliott did these things. The person I wrote sent me a letter with a small drawing of a cat and a typewriter at the top of one of the pages with a comment that read, Typo-Kitty. I thought that was hilarious, based on what I had already seen Elliott do.
Elliott cat is a gray tabby with black stripes. I named him after former Blues goalie, Brian Elliott. He is the youngest cat in my house. In the picture below, he is standing beside the oldest typewriter I own, a Smith Premier No. 4 from 1901.
This week’s typing assignment is to write about the pangram used to test typewriters (and fountain pens too), the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. A pangram is a phrase which contains every letter of the alphabet. It is meant to be a starting point for our imagination to move forward from there.
So, I decided to take the quick brown fox and the lazy dog into a fanfiction story that I’ve been working on as part of the July Camp NaNoWriMo event. The story takes place in the M*A*S*H* universe.
Below is my take on the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
It’s been a couple of days since I last posted. Holiday, sinuses draining, just went to sleep. It was kind of a dull holiday for me as a result, but I got some sleep and the sinuses sorted themselves out. Yay!
The typing assignment #3 on Joe Van Cleave’s blog this week is to write a one page paper about youthful hang-outs. I interpreted this to mean a place where I hung out when I was younger. The place is long since gone, but the memories remain.
RIP Galaxy Pizza and Arcade.
The second typing assignment in Joe Van Cleave’s Typing Assignments series is to describe what is unique and/or valuable about using a typewriter as a writing tool?
So, this post will be a bit shorter. Today has been kind of busy. It was the first day of the July Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Free agency of the NHL also started today. I’m catching up on who is moving where (always interesting for me).
Below is my response to typing assignment #2. I think I rambled on a bit.
Hello, this is my first blog post! As part of an ongoing typewriter assignment on Joe Van Cleave’s blog, I am creating this blog so I can post my ramblings on typewriters, photography and possibly the occasional comment on life in general.
The first assignment was to anthropomorphize your typewriter and have it describe how it found you, and how it feels about it’s relationship with you, the writer.
My response to this assignment was to write about a new to me typewriter, the Smith Premier No. 4. Its serial number puts the date of manufacture in 1901 and it is the new oldest machine that I own. See the image below for what I typed.
I had fun with this assignment and am preparing for Typing Assignment #2 which I will include in another post.