Friday, August 26, 2011

Whew! ... Now what?

Lots of things happening here lately:

  • The Hermes "Tropical" I blogged about showed up in the hands of a local eBay'er, and went for over $100 U.S.. Not bad for a typewriter with what I suspect is a broken or jammed tab mechanism. Dishonest, perhaps, but not bad. I'm taking a Critical Eye at some of the less-than-stellar machines in my stable.
  • Speaking of auctions, I put a low bid on a machine at Goodwill's online site, after talking it up on Google+ and Twitter, trying to find an adoptive home. It finally shipped, and is mine now. It's got some issues, including a tricky-ish drawband replacement, and a chip in the frame that needs to be stuck back in place, and some largish paint damage. I've been considering picking up a can of appliance enamel paint for a refinishing job. I think I may have found the machine to try it out upon. Stay tuned.
  • Nearly two years after the fact, I finally finished what I consider "Rewrite 2.0" of my NaNoWriMo 2009 story, One Last Quest. A few in the typosphere have slogged through earlier versions, or the first half of this rewrite. Since this stage has taken so long, though, I don't feel that I've actually read the silly thing start-to-finish. So that's next: convert it to an .epub file and throw it on the Nook. But being done with it: what a feeling! This is easily the longest thing I've ever written. And without question, having the computer read it aloud sped up the rewrite, as my ear caught so many things that my eye missed. (For the curious, I used LibreOffice for transcription with the Read Text extension. Free, and cross-platform.)

6 comments:

Richard P said...

Congratulations on the revision work! That takes dedication and thought.

Anonymous said...

I'm up for reading it if/when you put it out to the masses.

wordrebel said...

If you want to finish revising mine I'll let you!! What is it about last year's Nano that just kiled us all? That is, I haven't seen very many success stories. Ah well, November is right around the corner!

notagain said...

I proofread my friend's NaNo, it was a fun thing to do if anyone wants me to do so for them.
Also I did the low-bid thing on the studio 44 with 0 bids in AZ. You want to pick it up and check it out for me?

Mike Speegle said...

Clemens: What are you doing reading this? Get back to work.

mpclemens said...

@wordrebel: I haven't even re-read 2010's entry, which shows how much confidence I have in it. Although now, with a goodly bit of distance between me and the story, I'm thinking it's not as bad as I remember.

@notagain: If I was in AZ, I'd do it! But I'm the CA branch of the Typosphere, and so that means I can only find typewriters in the midwest. *sigh*