Didja Hear That?

That funny rumbling sound? I think it's the NaNoWriMo Typewriter Brigade starting to wake.

And lo, the literary world doth tremble, for a million monkeys were nigh upon the keys.

Who's starting to feel a little Brigade withdrawal? According to the calendar, we are forty days and nights away from the start... give or take a few hours depending on your local timezone. What are your plans for sacrificing free time, common sense, and personal hygiene in the name of massive amounts of terrible writing?

They cast down the backspace key. They rejected the false god of spell-check. They embraced their run-on sentences and comma splices unsullied by the hands of Strunk and White, and grammarians did weep at their passing.

The NaNo Powers That Be usually apply their scorched-earth policies to the forums at the end of September: this may be one of your last chances to read last year's threads here and here. Supposedly the new forum software is Bigger and Better and More Badass than years' past, but that remains to be seen. Will the Brigade continue to top the "Technology" forum? Will we continue to smack talk the AlphaSmart group? Will we attain the nexus of collective smug every time someone's laptop dies mid-novel? Oh yes, yes we will.

And thus there arose from the bowels of the forums a tremendous chatter, and there was talk of ribbons, and there was talk of onionskin, and there was talk of word count, and yea did the moderators quake at their advance, for the Typewriter Brigade had come home.

Typewriter Movie Trailer, Fundraising

Chris and Gary have posted the trailer for their typewriter documentary and have a Kickstarter round going to finish it off, with some typewriters generously offered up by the Typosphere. To plagiarize Neil Gaiman, WARNING: BRIEFLY CONTAINS ME. Mercifully, it also contains a number of other far-more-photogenic folks.

Typewriters record memories of 9/11

http://www.nyunews.com/news/2011/09/12/12collective/

Brother, Could You Spare a Typewriter?

Shameless begging time here, everyone:

Gary Nicholson -- producer of the typewriter documentary that's being filmed now -- is looking for ways to separate otherwise hardworking people from their cash, though he's calling it "securing a round of funding," which is some kind of made-up movie-guy talk. (Hi Gary!) They're exploring the idea of setting up a project on Kickstarter to crowd-source funding. I am told that in no what whatsoever will Gary and Chris The Director be blowing this cash on lattes and grillz and such, but will use it to fund a trip out to the east coast of the U.S.: the details of their wish-list are outlined on their web site (scroll down near the end.)

Anyhow, Gary asked if I would write something -- and I bet he's regretting that decision right now -- to see if anyone would be willing to part with a good condition, operating typewriter as a reward for a level of Kickstarter pledge. For those not familiar with Kickstarter, each project typically offers tiers of rewards based on the pledged amount, from a sticker or postcard for lower-level amounts, all the way up to a (thing) for the higher levels, where (thing) is the (thing) being funded. (A gadget, or a piece of art, or whatever.) Gary's idea is that the first person to pledge at a certain level will receive a typewriter offered up from the vaults of the Typosphere itself. In return, the machine donor will get:

• An "associate producer" credit and special thanks on the film
• A warm, fuzzy feeling that you've infected some other soul with the typewriter bug

I bet you could swing a latte out of Gary the next time you're in LA, too. You're on your own for any dental work, though.

Gary's offered to send a UPS label to the machine donor if they make their funding goal, so you'll hang on to the machine until that happens. Doing a little research on proper machine packing isn't a bad idea, either, as we don't want this to turn into a horror movie.

So, Typosphere, here's your chance to pare down the collection by one. Up to your ears in Silver Surfers? Keep stumbling across mid-1960's Smith Coronas? Consider offering it up to Gary and some lucky bidder, and get a little ego-stroking in return.