It started a long time ago...I know I say I was probably 10 or 11 when I knew I wanted to be a writer, but it might have begun a bit earlier than that...Playing in our basement as a kid during summer vacation, chicken-pecking on this old Royal Typewriter, pretending I worked for a newspaper, writing late-breaking news from the neighborhood.
A while back I wrote a blog about this very typewriter, having asked my mom about it and her telling me she thought it had been tossed out during clean-up week, but when I was up this past month to visit, we were getting ready for the yard sale and lo and behold, there it was, on my dad's side of the basement.
It's absolutely filthy and the keys jam and there's no ribbon, just lots of cobwebs, caked on dust and grim of the last couple decades of being buried in my parents' basement, but it is the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time! Well, as far as my writing life is concerned. My mom said my dad was just going to part it out and sell the keys on Ebay because that's about all he could make off it these days cause people make jewelry out of the keys now. Bah, Humbug I say!
I know my eyes had to have lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning when I saw it, cause my mom took one glance at me and knew I wanted it, so she said she'd talk to my dad. She understands the significance of it to me. This old heavy, filthy grey dinosaur is where I "cut my writing teeth" so to speak. I didn't write much of anything on it really, but there was something joyous about the click-clackety sound of those keys and the way the letters struck the page. It left an impression on me, to say the least and revved my imagination and my desire to become a writer.
I have no intentions of using it to write with, but for me it's more the sentimental value of having it in my possession, something I can someday have a "spotlight" on when I have my own "office" space for writing. It will be the centerpiece of my writerly showcase~ And it's my great hope that it will also be a wonderful writing totem for me to act as inanimate inspiration... a new muse from which to draw my writing strength and drive from. It will be even better when I get the old gal cleaned up and looking pretty.
Happy Hump Day Sweets!
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