Typewriter!

I'll be the first to admit I have zero writing discipline.

I have the severe problem of getting inspired, writing twenty pages and never touching the project again. Or I begin something, stop for three months and pick it up again later having completely lost the flow, intimidated by my previous work. I'd nervously delete pages, agonise over paragraphs and just close the document to ignore it for a few new months. I really want to get cracking on my All the Targaryen Men are dead (And their female relations are much happier for it) fic so I was looking up ways to freshen up my brain and get me in the writing and editing mood. I tried working in a different room - nothing. I tried writing it up in a notebook to look at it differently. Nothing. My frenzied writing once more hobbled me. So i decided to print it out and scribble over it, see if that helped. My printer was being a prick, so I cracked out my mums old electronic typewriter.

I typed out my first chapter. 

I scribbled all over my first chapter, and nearly doubled it's length.

I typed it up again, chucked some of what I had for months and some of what I had just written. I tightened up for info-dumpy second chapter by moving it to the first. I introduced a bigger conspiracy that had only occurred to me in the as-yet-unwritten fourth chapter.

There's a surprising freedom in not being able to just sigh and delete entire pages. I'm forced to really look at what im writing. And as I was typing up my fic, keeping googledocs open on my laptop I bemoaned how of course my brain likes the most roundabout way of doing things.

(sidenote, i am currently beating my laptop half to death because those damn keys dont respond with a gentle touch)

After typing out about twelve? pages my ribbon died. Not surprising, I'm fairly sure the thing and all it's accessories are older than my mothers firstborn. Dilemma. Does anyone even make them anymore?

(Yes. They do. In Germany. For fifty dollars. And another sixty in postage.)

So I looked up typewriter supplies in Australia. I had a look at what models seemed to have the most available parts and ribbons and tossed $25 each at an eBay auction for an Olivetti Lettera 32 and an Olympia Splendid 33, both with carry cases (!) on the assurance that these were good starter typewriters with easily affordable ribbons and popular enough I could find an online guide for what ails it as I have no doubt they'll need some (hopefully straightforward) maintenance before I can use them.

I also went on a typewriter forum and a friendly poster said I could probably cannibalise other typewriter cassettes for the ribbon, so long as I was careful not to let them unspool and that they were the correct width but he couldn't guarantee it would work. He was also pleasantly surprised I could pry open my Praxicart and put it back together again, as far as I know smoothly. (Goodbye fingernails)

And as it turns out I am uh. Top bidder on both typewriters. And if I try and squirrel out of an auction I won, that's a mark against me which is bad for when i need things off eBay to fix whatever mainstay of my household which stopped being manufactured before the end of the Cold War breaks this time. So. Here's hoping I get outbidded by rabid typewriter collectors.

Tho I do like the look of the Olivetti. It's the same brand as my mum's.