Here it is day four of NaNoWriMo, and my word count stands at 5,320. That’s an estimate, told to me by the NaNo Statistical Spreadsheet for Typists that I worked up. Those of us who type generally make a best guess at our actual wordcount. There are various ways of  going about it, but I go by the rule of thumb that five characters = one word. My margins are set at 65 characters. I knock that down to 60, figuring that I rarely type all the way to the margin stop, and that gives me 12 words per line. I’m one of those daft people who types single-spaced. (Most of my editing is done on the fly as I retype the text into the computer.) A full single-spaced page yields 60 lines. At 12 words per line, that comes out to 720 words per page. I round down to 700 to account for paragraph breaks and new paragraph indentations.

The tricky bit is keeping track of one’s progress and knowing at a glance whether or not one is on track for a Nov 30 completion. Okay, it’s tricky for me; I stink at math. So I took apart Erik Benson’s popular NaNoWriMo Report Card spreadsheet and adapted it for typists. You enter your average number of words per page at the top, and it tells you how many pages you should be up to for every day of the month. Each day, you enter your accumulated page count and the rest of the spreadsheet will autopopulate the estimated number of words you’ve typed that day, your total word count altogether, how many words you have left, your average words typed per day, how many words you need to type tomorrow to stay on track for 50k by Nov 30, the date you’ll finish at your present typing rate, and your percentage completed toward 50k. Right now, I’m on track to finish on Nov 28.

In other news, I had to give up on my goal of typing the entire thing on the Triumph Norm. I really wanted to do it, because I’m writing about the same people who built it. I also felt that using it to write about how the workers deceived the Nazis would redeem it from its past as property of the Third Reich government. But alas, after five full pages I just cannot find my rhythm or catch a pace on it. It’s not the transposed Y and Z, because I’ve typed on enough other QWERTZ keyboards to be used to it. There’s just something about it that isn’t synching up with me. So last night I reluctantly switched over to the Olympia SM9. I could have gone with one of my other German machines–particularly the Studio 42, which may see action yet–but since I was switching away from the Triumph altogether I thought I might as well go for speed and solidity. The SM9 is pica pitch, which is why I chose it over the SG1. Man, is it nice! I’m typing at twice the pace I was on the Triumph.

For lunch-hour typing at work, I’ve brought in the Tower Chieftain II (a rebadged late Skyriter). In quick competition with the Hermes Rocket and Olympia Socialite, it was the lightest, quietest, most reliable, and easiest to type on.

From reading other posts on the official Typewriter Brigade board in the NaNoWriMo forums, it seems like a lot of people are switching typers right about day 3. A common theme is “I really wanted to type on _______, but…” Which brings up the question: if you could have any typewriter, what would you really want to use for NaNoWriMo?

Typewriter: Tippi, a 1970s Adler Tippa S

Typewriter: 1916 Oliver #9

I had a problem: the typewriter that I want to use for NaNoWriMo has no carrying case. Well, it has a bottom, but the top is long gone. It also doesn’t fit into any of my other typewriters’ carrying cases. What to do?

It failed to fit into any of the laptop bags at my disposal ( Dell Latitude and Toshiba T1100 bags came close, but the zipper wouldn’t quite close). Besides, as a rule, I don’t care for toting around a bag that advertises that I have something expensive and worth stealing inside. I usually carry my laptop in a hippie backpack.

Then I spotted the Nightmare Before Christmas messenger bag that I bought at a garage sale a couple of years ago. I originally thought it would be funny to use as a diaper bag for our impending child, but the person bearing the child who has veto power over most child-rearing decisions disagreed. I slid the typewriter inside. Perfect fit! However, what had appealed to me about the laptop bags–substantial padding–was totally lacking. Modifications would have to be made.

Long story short, I give you the Nightmare Before Christmas typewriter/laptop carrying case!

It’s a hybrid between the original cheapo student messenger bag and an actual laptop bag. The inside is lined sides and bottom with the removable inner padding from a laptop bag. I added the additional shoulder strap because a) I wanted a padded strap, and b) it enabled me to cinch up the original shoulder strap and use it as a handle to make it easier to pick up, put in and take out of the car, etc.

Here it is opened up:

The padded side panel from underneath the typewriter slides out and, upside-down, becomes the perfect typing pad. Between it and the new rubber feet I gave the typer*, there is no vibration or “creep” whatsoever while typing.

The only drawback is lack of additional storage. I can carry a couple of pens, an iPod, a small notebook, and that’s about it. A file folder with some paper can slide underneath the inner side panel. But this should get me by for November!

* B322 rubber bushings from Ace Hardware

Attention, Minnesotans: The Haupt Antiek Market of Apple Valley, in addition to committing crimes against spelling, sell keychopped jewelry. Do not patronize them.

Typewriter: c.1957 DeJur-Triumph Perfekt

Typewriter: 1950 Royal Quiet DeLuxe

Monda at No Telling has presented this blog with the Kreativ Blogger award! Thanks, Monda! Apparently, there’s a fine line between creative and crazy, and I’m dancin’ just north of the difference between being handed awards and being handed prescriptions. Gosh, I didn’t even think to have them install a trophy shelf anywhere within Oliver Towers!

I don’t normally participate in memes that require passing something along chain-letter style, but receiving a creativity award from Monda is like getting a gold star in one of her writing classes, so I will happily play along this time.

As with most things that are worth having, there are Rules that accompany this award. They are:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting. (see below)
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

There are only about seven non-political blogs that I visit regularly, so if you know me, there’s a good chance that you’re gonna get an award! My nominees for the Creative Kreativ Blogger award are:

1. Strikethru at Strikethru for outstanding ephemeral creativity.
2. Mike Clemens at Clickthing for outstanding retrotech craftiness.
3. Joe Van Cleve at Joe Van Cleave’s Blog for outstanding camera creativity.
4. Tatiana Cardeal at Brazil | Social | Photography for outstanding photography.
5. Speculator at La Vie Graphite for outstanding confluence of written and visual art.
6. c.e. grundler at c.e. grundler for outstanding creativity in vintage boat repair.
7. Little Flower Petals at Little Flower Petals for outstanding thinkspills.

Seven things you might find interesting about me:

1. I wear a fedora almost everywhere.
2. I co-founded our state’s only barefoot hiking club.
3. I sometimes drive around with my iPod hooked up to an FM transmitter set to a popular station but playing an empty track, so the cars around me find their radios drowned out by silence.
4. Favorite cocktail: orange juice, splash of vodka, splash of rum, splash of banana schnapps.
5. I never owned a brand-new car until last year. Technically, it’s my wife’s, anyway.
6. I have a near-pathological fear of spiders, flying, and  needles.
7. I really, really dislike talking about myself.

In the spirit of creativeness, I’ve worked up my own version of the Kreativ Blogger award. The nominees can either grab the image below or click the version in the header for a downloadable if you prefer the more quiltish style.

And now, if y’all don’t mind, I need to excuse myself and head to Target to buy a shelf.

Typewriter: 1950 Smith-Corona Skyriter

Some time back, I found a box of library checkout cards at the thrift store. No sleeves, just the cards. Despite having no idea how I could possibly use them, I bought the box, because you just don’t leave behind something that neat. It went on a shelf upstairs and was largely forgotten.

Then not too far back, Monda posted about her love of old bookplates, a nearly extinct item both in use and the art thereof. And then it hit me.

A long time back, a Flickr friend taught me how to do injet transfers. This is like Polaroid transfers, but without the Polaroid. Here’s how you do it: Take one of those sheets of print-your-own shipping labels and peel off all of the labels, so you have only the blank wax paper-like sheet. Put that sheet in your printer shiny-side up and print on it as if it were glossy photo paper (if your image has text, be sure to flip it before printing, or it will come out backwards). As soon as it comes out of the printer, press a lightly dampened sheet of paper over the image. Pretend you’re lifting a comic strip with Silly Putty (the principles involved are actually nearly identical). After several seconds of pressing, gently lift off the paper. The image should now be transferred onto it.

You may have to experiment with your printer’s brightness and contrast settings and the amount of your paper’s dampness until you hit upon a good combination. For me, the process has been hit-or-miss, I think mostly because I’d previously worked with a notebook of homemade paper. The texture is a bit too rough for a good transfer. Which in fact is why I’d never written in that notebook and chose it for inkjet transfer experiments. Some people say that cheapo ultra-glossy photo paper also works instead of a label sheet, but I’ve had better luck with the label sheet. In theory, heavy wax paper ought to also work, but I haven’t tried it.

After reading Monda’s post, I thought, why not use inkjet transfers to make my own bookplates? Naturally, I was reluctant to risk a nice book for a potential transfer disaster (plus, moisture–on a book?! Never!). But then I remembered that box of library cards upstairs. Voila! Last night I ran off a few, until my label sheet finally crinkled and curled from too many times wiping away the leftover ink. Here are the results:

(Click each to see it larger.)

The one on the left was my first attempt. Too small, but not bad. On the right, we see that Aubrey Beardsley works well for this method, but I evidently neglected to dampen the card enough and lost most of the art deco border.

Here are a couple that I made by altering old typewriter advertisements. The one on the left is from an Adler ad, and Remington on the right. I like these two a lot.

I didn’t insert names into any of them because I figure that it would be more appropriate to type or write one’s name on the card.

So there you have it: DIY bookplates. I think I’ve just given away what a few people are getting for Christmas, but oh, well.

(Just watch. There is probably a small collective of library card collectors who are at this moment calling me a destructive heathen for destroying pristine library cards.)