Janice MacLeod's Blog, page 7

The luck of living in a place where libraries sell off treasures like this! Sure it might look junky to someone. Downright messy. But to me, it is glorious. The local library had a giant book sale. I showed up to lurk about and was handsomely rewarded. Look at all those dates in the book. All those readers. All that stamping!

And to think, this could have ended up on the pyre.

I’m not sure where the rejected books go after the book sale. I would like to think they just travel from town to town looking for their forever homes.

I love this book.. It’s a collection of stories about James Bond… and I happen to be married to a very James Bond-like character.

I even show our daughter photos of Daniel Craig and she says DADDY… Christophe is NOT amused. I find it endlessly amusing. I’ve been with Christophe for ten years. He hasn’t ever really found it that amusing. In fact, he looks even more like Daniel Craig when he is sporting a scowl.

Anyway, the book sale. It was a hit. I picked up a gardening book that had all those sexy illustrations of VEGETABLES.

And…

Just sitting around a book sale looking pretty, waiting for me to arrive and take it home.

Speaking of old things, Bruce came by.

Bruce is a colleague from another life. We talked about our road trips, about mutual friends, and especially about old things. I complained about the lack of CD players in cars. He complained about lack of colours in car. Then I went on about the lovely hues of old typewriters. And he went on about the lovely hues of old cars.

As I’ve previously mentioned, my dining table now looks like swanky office digs, which is ironic as I’m the poster child for leaving corporate life all dramatic-like to write these:

And now I write letters on old manual typewriters. Oddly, I’m writing on a computer keyboard right now and it has none of the haunting romance of writing on a typewriter. It also doesn’t have the typos. Or charm.

By the way, I had a visit with Mr. Content Analysis for my site. Looks accurate:

Glad FUN made the list. In my previous blog, “Korean bath houses” made the list.

Feel free to subscribe to the Typewriter Letters and get fun mail in the actual mail… with paper and fancy stamps and everything. A few glimpses of the latest letters:

Did you read that ad from the local paper? People around here are so kind. A sharp contrast to all that city living of yore.

Another great ad. Senior Gent! Nice. This ad made me laugh because he could also be describing wanting a dog. But it made me happy to read and I hope it works out for John.

I wonder if this could soon be John.

The letters are coming along nicely. A few nice words:

“Absolutely charming and fun! Like a letter from a wonderful best friend! I’m signing up for more…I can’t imagine a better way to be uplifted during a long winter!” – JoRene B.

That excellent, because I can’t imagine a better activity this winter than writing the letters. Also…

“Happiness delivered to my mailbox, Janice MacLeod style.” – Monica B.

My friend Harley wrote me (an actual typewritten letter) and said “letters always make a mark on someone’s day. How could they not?… Even if the other end is a dark hole where letters go to die… letters fill crevices in lives.”

Janice

PS The usual requisite links to keep Mr. Content Analysis happy:

Etsy shop for letters and artEcourses for writing betterFreebies for fun free things

It’s raining outside. Big drops. Gorgeous sound. Couldn’t be happier.

It makes tea taste better, makes lounge wear more comfy, makes the guilt about not GETTING OUT THERE and DOING ALL THE THINGS drift away.

“Rain produces a sound akin to white noise. The brain gets a tonic signal from white noise that decreases this need for sensory input, thus calming us down. Similarly, bright sun tends to keep us stimulated.”

(Kimberly Hershenson, Therapist and anxiety and depression specialist)

Without all the errand running due to inclement/wonderful weather, I’ll be clacking at my typewriter. My mom picked up another typewriter at an antique store. Looked alright, seemed to work fine, but I soon realized the ribbon wasn’t advancing. It was stuck in place.

Like the Tin Man (who doesn’t like rain as much as I do).

Someone had used this machine a lot. There were signs of correction fluid dried here and there. And a new ribbon was put in place, then… nothing.

Years it sat idle. The whole thing in a coma. The ribbon had fused itself onto the prongs where it sat.

Kind of broke my heart.

Since fixing these things professionally is inconvenient at best, I flipped her over, opened her up, and tried to find the problem. Solving the problem would be another skill but I felt I would at least need to be able to explain something to a repair person. There is no electricity anywhere with these manual beasts so it doesn’t feel so risky to tickle your fingers here and there and push things around. I discovered that the thing that advances the ribbon was fused in place along with the ribbon itself. Years of sitting without anyone to play with.

Poor little bug on typewriter by the wall
No one to love him at all
No one to wash his clothes
No one to tickle his toes
Poor little bug on typewriter by the wall

So I jiggled the thing that advances the ribbon… technical typewriter-speak.. and I actually got it working. Self is amazed by self.

Now it’s as good as new. I popped in a fresh ribbon and it is back online. Or on line. Or on. Or… well, not on… it’s a manual so it is never off. What are the terms for typewriter usage?!?!?!

So now I’ll sit inside and type out next week’s letter for the Typewriter Letter subscriptions. It has been nice to see familiar names pop up in the Etsy shop, people who subscribed to Paris Letters for years. You don’t know you’re going to miss them, but you do. You think your time together stops with the ending of an era, but just a little jiggle and the plot advances.

Since the weather is foul (gorgeously so), my next letter will likely include waxing poetic about rain, about how when the weather is ruffled, the soul is quiet, about how even the birds huddle and stop chirping. About tea and rainbow umbrellas and how the shine of the sidewalks makes everything old feel a little bit new again.

September friends.

“But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favourite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.”

Stephen King, Salem’s Lot 

This is a much more poetic way to describe September than the key moment when I knew September was in full gear at our house.

We ate the last ice cream cones. 

You don’t realize how much room a box of ice cream cones takes up in your house until September arrives. Suddenly, school snacks get top billing, you’re buying brown sugar, and have no room for a giant box of cones that happens to hold just one or two cones. You finally say to the box:

“Get outta here!”

Just like that, summer is over. Swim suits are faded. The beach towels slowly make their way to the bottom of the pile in the linen closet. The beach sand is still here.

Because beach sand. 

But it is less and less the more we wipe and sweep.

Today I went for a walk wearing long leggings on and was glad for it against the brisk morning breeze. 

Sayonara summer.

Our daughter is in kindergarten. There was a time when I was deep in the fatigue of toddlerhood when someone told me, “You just have to get her to kindergarten.” This person happened to have 4 (FOUR!!!) toddlers of her own. (A two year old followed by triplets. Unplanned but a delight… or at least an adventure.) She used this mantra, “Get them to kindergarten.” If she could use it to calm down, so could I. And it did work. 

Five whole days of school all in a row. I feel like doing carpet angels on my living room floor every day at 8:45. 

But instead, I’m sitting down at this vintage friend:

The Typewriter Letter subscriptions are so much fun I almost don’t want to admit it to people. It really does feel like new love. I send a lightly illustrated typewritten letter out every week to subscribers.

Harley told me I needed “a stallion of a machine” to really GET THERE. He didn’t explain the THERE I was to get to, but there are whispers on the wind when I pull out one of my 6 machines.

SIX. I know. Hardly anything.

So far, I’ve done a lot of writing about typewriters.

I just can’t get over it. Remember that time I went on about Paris? That lasted 10 years. I don’t think I’ll be going on so much about the typewriter itself. There is a whole world out there to describe at the helm of a clunky word processor that thinks it’s a classic car.

I’ve been pondering perfection.

With typos being a natural side effect of life with manual typewriters, I have been pondering the pursuit of perfection.

I have come to the conclusion that perfection is overrated. Writing on a typewriter feels like one long run on thought, warts and all, and the writing is better for it. 

I wonder back to Paris, whether or not it would have been good to have a typewriter back then when I was describing this new lovely world.But no.

I needed to become better at describing so I could become better at first drafts. With a typewriter it’s ALL first drafts. 

Writing just one draft is like swimming straight across a lake rather than swimming around to the other side along the shore. There is no shallow end on which to rely. 

Even this blog post has taken me hours of editing. Shocking, I know. I have written forward and back, and have deleted as much as I have left on the page.

This is wonderful, of course, and I surely cannot imagine writing an entire book with a typewriter, but this is very different than living LIVE when typing up a letter.

Same same but different.

How do I make an interesting first draft? Simple. I write a letter every day and pick the best one to send out to subscribers. A lot of work? Not if you’re in love.

You know you’re in love when you take fun photos of the subject matter in all manner of scenarios: 

Look at the autumnal splendour.

This workhorse is sitting outside right now because I gave it a mineral spirit spruce up. The paint thinner aroma is a bit thick around here.

If you would like REAL fun mail, subscribe to the Typewriter Letters. They also make a great gift for anyone who could use a little pressie in the post every week. 

PS.

WRITE BETTER with these ecourses.

READ more blog posts.

BUY me a typewriter. 6 is never enough

I heard that if you park your car with a typewriter inside, when you return to your car, you’ll find your original typewriter plus two more.

That’s kind of how it is. 

Right now, we have FOUR typewriters sporting all manner of features, from TABS (which tab wherever they WANT to tab), an Automatic Repeat Spacer for forms and such, which must have been HUGE for ad agencies everywhere.

“It comes complete with a new-age Automatic Repeat Spacer to fill out those important forms with ease.”

Speaking of ease and grace, look at these darling digits:

And…

Was the typewriter a precursor to the Ouiga board?

A little creepy. A lot cool.

Though there are also nasty little surprises that come along with old typewriters (beyond the smell).

Looks innocent enough until you read “Who will use this typewriter: Student, Housewife, Businessman.

YA!?!?!? How about this business WOMAN right here?!?!!?

Honestly. This card had me irked for a week… maybe more. I’m still irked.

Despite the blatant misinterpretation of what makes a business person, regardless of body parts and choices, I am still so in love with the typewriter… unless a breeze comes through the window and then the place smells like a charity shop.

STINK-EEEEE.

Our dining area looks like an office space with the workers on break.

I’m so in love with the typewriter for one BIG reason:

With a slowing of the scene, the mind writes differently. Kind of a glorious stream of somewhat edited thought.

There are typos. Plenty of those.

But sometimes they are FUNNY and add an extra ZING to the letters. Speaking of ZING, look at the letters I’ve been getting lately from Harley who introduced me to the magical reverse tech of typewriters.

In typing letters in response, I have been reflecting on the decade I sent out Paris Letters. There are certain things I loved, and a few things I didn’t. For instance, it has been promoting the new book DEAR PARIS without the strain of doing the letters as well. A Paris Letter really did take me all month to complete, from concept, painting, writing, putting it all together and getting it out the door.

But I loved writing out addresses and talking to customers. I loved the medium itself. Getting a letter in the mail is FUN.

So I created this:

It’s over at my Etsy shop.

The subscription is a letter EACH WEEK instead of one a month. The graphics are simpler so I can get them out the door. And the more letters I get out the door, the more fun for everyone.

I’ve also noticed something with gift subscriptions. Those who need it really need it more than once a month. Getting fun mail every week for a few months is helpful during hard times.

Look at these beauts so far:

With a tablecloth I also picked up at a charity shop, that also… like the typewriter STUNK before I washed it.

Bits of sketches.

Fun graphics.

All kinds of fun things can go in these letters. But mostly, it’s the writing. Since kindergarten started (best invention EVER) I have felt this massive WAVE of WRITE WRITE WRITE. Then angels with typewriters show up and help take the writing to a whole new level.

Learn more and subscribe to the Typewriter Letters. 

 

 

So I’m fulfilling letter orders over in the shop, as usual. In one order, the customer states “If it’s not blank on the back of the letter, I don’t want it.”

Curious, I inquired further.

Harley tells me he plans on typing letters to friends on the back of the letters. So my illustrated letter on one side, his typed letter on the other side.

This intrigues me. Like, with an actual typewriter?

I love the idea of all of this and I tell him so.

“I’ll send you one” he says. I immediately forward my mailing address to a stranger.

wonders about this… shoulder shrugs… carries on

A week later the UPS guy is standing on my porch with a big box. I don’t remember ordering anything so he looks at the packing form.

“A typewriter?”

I didn’t order one but I nod and say it’s mine.

mine mine mine

It’s a package from Harley who has sent me a robin’s egg blue ROYAL typewriter.

I am astounded for a few reasons. First, I thought Harley was sending me a letter. Just a letter. Second, this is a heavy package that probably cost a fortune to ship. Third, a random gift from a stranger doesn’t happen every day… or ever.

Look at this beauty:

How kind and wonderful is this gift?!?!?!!?

It’s gorgeous and has a pleasant clickity clack. His letter, explaining his gift, has been rolled in like it was just written on the typewriter before popping the whole thing in the mail. Clever.

What a pressie!

We’ve been clickity clacking ever since. Amélie feels very accomplished when she can type all the way to end to make the bell ring.

Everyone who comes over takes a turn.

Then my mom and sister are at a yard sale on the weekend and come across this beauty for $20.

It’s the Majestic 800 and it’s as majestic as it sounds…

Now that we got it working.

The thing with manual typewriters is that you can see inside at all the mechanics; how wires hook to other wires, gadgetry and movement. It’s all rather symphonic and majestic, in fact.

So now, inside the space of a week, we have two typewriters and I’m fully Tom Hanks about the whole typewriter craze. I’ve learned how to clean them, replace ribbon, set margins, and even make minor fixes.

Also this week I’ve been prepping for a writer event over at the local winery. It’s part of their WINE AND WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS. My writing workshop is all about THE MAGIC OF JOURNALING and I take us through a process by which we can actually redesign our lives within a couple hours. High promise but it actually works. Plus it includes a glass of wine, which is a nice touch. Anyway, it’s Wednesday August 25 from 7-9 at Burning Kiln Winery if you’re around.

While prepping for the event, I was collecting bits of writerly wisdom. Then I started looking up typewriter photos online.

Sexy like a librarian!

Plus, I’ve been making bouquets galore with the flowers in the garden. Look at this creative use of thyme:

I put together typewriter fun + writing wisdom + plants and flowers and created a cute 15 page magazine:

This magazine includes:15 pages of writerly advice3 type written lettersPretty pictures of typewriters with plants

I admit that calling this PDF a magazine when it’s only 15 pages is a bit rich, but it’s FUN. So there. Maybe there will be more issues. Dunno.

already plenty of issues

It’s so FUNNY to me to search for two random words like “typewriter plants” and be presented with WONDERFUL TYPEWRITERS IN THE WILD. Download the magazine for FREE and behold the fun weirdness for yourself.

What can I say. I like making book-like structures.

I’m fully aware that part of my enthusiasm for manual typewriters is due to my complete fatigue with fixing my website over the last few months. Having Amélie exploring the world has also made me realize that it’s important to have tactile tools, whether it’s a page she can type on or a record she can play herself. Feeling like an independent person doing her own thing is important to her. She gets exasperated having to ask for drinks and snacks. Being able to pull herself up to a desk and click clack away without anyone having to show her how has added a level of glee to her life.

Mine, too.

Janice

PS.

Download the FREE magazine.Sign up for the writing workshop. *Christophe rolls his eyes*

PPS Almost forgot! This is happening over at the shop. Canvas prints, framed. YES!

You probably haven’t noticed. I’ve gone to great lengths to hide the fact. The world feels so broken right now that my wee little problems seem insignificant. It’s a long, lovely, broken love story. Don’t be too alarmed. It’s about my blog, not my home or my health. I find it very kind and slightly […]

Someone asked about the tools I use to write and create art so I thought I’d let you know. Some tools are crap.  I cannot even imagine how anyone writes with this monster: That’s a stock photo. I don’t even have one of these pens in my house to take a photo of it. This monstrous industrial […]

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This is a big day in Paris. The cafés are open again. The photo above was taken before all this pandemic business happened, so we are all crammed in, no masks, breathing. Happy days! On this particular day, my friends from LA were in town so my worlds were happily colliding. We walked and ate (very French), and took photos of famous movie spots (very Hollywood). 

Hope is on the horizon.

Janice

PS The journaling course is still on sale until May 31st. Learn how to take your journal writing to the next level and create amazing things. Save $30 until May 31st.

PPS Join the list. I’ll send love notes, news and freebies to your inbox. I’ve got a bunch of wild and crazy ideas in my journal writing. Bit of a mess. Should take my own course to learn how to iron it all out.

(photo credit: Robert Strohmaier)

I’m lucky to be in a position to be asked advice on things. Mostly Paris and creativity. These are things I know.

May is the beginning of tourist season in Paris. Usually I start getting emails about what to do and where to spend time if one has two days, five days, two weeks in Paris. It’s a little different this year, of course. When I lived in Paris, I would spend a few days walking out-of-towners around my neighbourhood, taking them to my favourite haunts and giving them a few tidbits of interesting information at each one. It wasn’t exactly a walking tour since I forgot most of the historic details of each place. I told them what I remembered or what I found interesting, then when our feet were tired, we would find a café with a nice view of the street. The lazy tourist. That’s how I rolled.

This week, I connected with a lady and her niece. The niece had just graduated from college and was about to move to Los Angeles. LA is another topic I know a lot about.

I wanted to take her aside and tell her so many things.

“Forget the Eiffel Tower. You need to know about parking in Beverly Hills.”

As someone who lived in LA for a long time toiling away at the ol’ career, I had much to offer this young grasshopper. I wanted to tell her that LA is a big town and she’ll need a good car with great gas mileage. I wanted to tell her to use sunscreen because too many people have parts and pieces lobbed off their noses and ears. I wanted to tell her to live beneath her means and to not let Whole Foods make her lazy in the kitchen. They may cut all her vegetables, but in doing so they will cut deep into her paycheck, too. I wanted to tell her to learn to surf and spend as much time at the ocean as possible. Ditch the makeup and let the hair fall as it may. That’s the look. Don’t fall for the prices at Forever21. The fabric doesn’t last beyond a few washes.

But mostly I wanted to tell her to keep a journal.

Because if I were at the beginning of my career and green with life skills, I would have wished someone would have told me to keep a daily journal. I believe I would have been happier and better at life sooner.

Daily journal writing = Life design 101

Luckily, I came across Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way early on (but not early enough) which explained the magic of morning pages, which is writing three pages a day in a journal every day.

Writing in a journal has helped me figure out my life. Simple. Each day I carved out time in my day to figure out finances, heal heart ache, ponder creative path, and plan the day, week, and year. It was the place where I figured out how to save up, pare down, quit my job and travel. On the road, the journal was my home base. The one place that was familiar when everything around me was different.

I wrote to learn what I knew.

And what I knew was that I was the boss of me and I had all the inner resources I needed to effectively deal with my situations. That when life went askew, I could pull back, open my journal and figure out what to do. Most of all, I wrote down my angst in a private place so I didn’t have to offload it onto others and stink up the joint with my foul mood. Everyone around you can smell your vibe… what’s your signature blend?”

Sweet with a hint of spice.

In the end, I didn’t tell the young grasshopper much at all beyond a few tidbits about Paris. My spidey sense said she wouldn’t have heard me anyway.

Youth. That whole thing.

But I would have loved to tell her about the magic of journaling.

By the way, my new ecourse is about what to do with all your journal pages. How to organize the mess, find the gems and create something out of it. All my books and letters started as journal entries. There is a formula and a method to make it not an overwhelming slog. I promise. And it’s on sale for the month of May.

And now, I’ll will make a cup of coffee, open my journal and begin my day…

Lately I’ve been sensing that there was another ecourse hovering in my general head space. But what? I asked around. People offered up suggestions. But my general languishing left me lackadaisical about starting anything.

But then Jamie R came along and saved the day. She writes:

“I am already a journaler and I was wondering how to turn streams of conscious thought into something more focused, like a story vs rambling about all the things in no particular order.”

And I thought, Yep, I know about this. The art of journaling isn’t all about writing. There is also editing, organizing, deciding, and also choosing to NOT write in the journal. I know. *mind blown*Often we get stuck in writing and are not sure about the next steps, so I created a course called:*

This title makes me laugh, laugh, laugh so I kept it. Jamie R simply pulled me OUT of my languishing and back into CREATIVITY.

If there is one thing I know about, it is journaling. Pages and pages, books and books. A whole hot mess of thought captured in the beautiful Apica Twin Ring:

Featured with the ultimate companion, the UniBall Vision Micro pen.

I’ve become such a sucker for this combo that I can hardly write without them. To not have them sends me into silent fits of fury. I enjoy writing with them so much that I can go on and on and on, day after day, year after year, with journals filled with “rambling about all the things in no particular order” as Jamie R so eloquently states.

But what to DO!?!?!?! with all that genius? How to BEGIN sorting though that hot mess? How does one make something wonderful from all the journal writing? In this new course, you’ll learn:

How to sort through the journals with an editor’s eyeLearn what to toss and what to keepHow to organize the contentDecide what project to do firstThe behind-the-scenes of how I turn my journal writing into books, art, letters, and blog posts.

*

Once I figured out how to sort through my journals, I ended up on a clear, time-efficient path to MAKING THE THINGS instead of writing about making the things. I started 11 years ago and have since wrote 3 best selling books.

Amazingly enough. It all started when I figured out WHAT TO DO with my journal writing. 

SAVE $30 until May 31, 2021

I figured, if you’re reading this, chances are you’re already on my list. If you’re on my list, you should get fancy discounts. If you want this course, you probably already know you’re going to take it, so save some cash and buy yourself flowers and art supplies.

Interesting background tidbits on making this new ecourse:

The videos in this new ecourse are way more fun. I just let the camera roll and kept the less polished bits. Sometimes I look at other course creators and I stop listening to the content and just stare at their perfection. The hair. The teeth. The eloquence. It makes me wonder if they are really that nice or are seething Cruellas beneath all that SHOW.

On camera:

Off camera:

But with me, I brushed my hair. You’re welcome.

This is as good as it gets. My hair is still mostly curly-chemo-kink, but at least it’s long enough to wrangle into a writerly bun. When I began creating ecourses, I cared so deeply about the background, wanting it to be Mid-Century Modern with some rubber plants and light airy windows. But now I’m just glad most of the toys are off screen. And on this one I let my Funny Flag fly. I think it’s a side effect of our new Zoom world. We are discovering that real is better than perfect.

So if you’d like guidance on how to sort through all your journal writing and create something from it, check out the course. I gave you, dear reader, $30 off for the month of May.

PS If you would like to learn something from me that I don’t currently offer, let me know. If your question becomes a course, you’ll get it free.