You're just an Abril Fat-Face

What's the power of a font?

Well for a graphic obsessed person like me it may just have caused me to write my next book. Correction, to finish my next book.

I saw the font somewhere and looked it up, 'Abril Fat Face.' So cool. A little art-deco but also modern feeling and yet timeless. Normally I don't gravitate towards serif fonts - sorry to nerd out here - but this one is my kind of serif; cool and just the right size.

As soon as I played around with some numbers in Abril I knew I wanted a number as a book title. Why? Who knows. It's just that cool.

I also love lists but sometimes I can go overboard. My top 100 things to do in El Paso never really took off, and my ten worst burgers series fell apart at number seven (just like the burger).

Actually I can't tell a lie, the above burger was pretty good and did not fall apart. I enjoyed it - and the really good potato salad btw - at 3 Crow Bar in Nashville this past weekend, mostly just to have a little normalcy on a wintry football Sunday.. aka the good old days.

I'm notorious for disobeying this rule. But no more. It's time to say we'll do twenty push-ups per day and hit 18 instead of saying 50 and never doing any. I said I wanted to make a movie and now I've made four, albeit small films but they're getting finished as I've gotten more - wait for it - realistic.

And honest.

Because the truth is just funny.

I've never met anyone yet who wasn't compelled to laugh or to furrow their brow and ask for more details when the above picture is shown to them. It's funny because it's bizarre. Because at first glance it doesn't compute. And lastly, because it's real.

What the heck happened to cause that picture? Who is that? Oh that's YOU. Sheesh man what happened to your door?

Well that's where the stories come in.

In fact the 26 stories are already written (see how realistic I'm getting) which means the likelihood of the book getting finished just jumped 400 %.

The breakdown of the 26 stories - so you'll be ready - is as follows:

10 Car-related

5 Woman/ relationship related

3 Job-related

2 While-driving related

6 Misc.

See how a nice, low number like 26 is so much better than 100? 26 is enough to flip through two or three when the book ends up on your friends' coffee table. A couple of laughs, probably one photo for each item, and you move on.

Thankful that you didn't drive with no door.

Medium is a writer's forum. It's where I found Florida poet Erik Rittenberry, who I interviewed in the summer relating to his viral-post "The American Life is Killing You" outside of Orlando. You can watch the interview on youtube if you missed it. https://youtu.be/2XCl3J1V-IQ

After finishing my low-budget movie-during-a-pandemic book A Virus Ate My Movie I've gotten more disciplined with my writing. Which is in itself a bogus statement. More disciplined is what we're conditioned to hear when someone talks about writing, or exercising, or eating better, probably because they're things that might not come naturally, and therefore we need to be... more disciplined.

Writer's write.

Ya ya, it's one of those clichés you hear from someone, possibly trying to charge you $ to teach you to become a writer.

I could also say artists art. Drawers draw. Or however that shakes out.

But it's true.

If I showed you all the sketches over the years you'd say, "oh, yeah you're an illustrator, since you're always drawing." And you'd be right.

Ergo –

More disciplined? Maybe, or maybe just more writing.

I enjoy it. I notice I'm writing more and when I'm writing I'm writing more words and writing more often. More regularly. Getting better at sharing. Getting better at receiving feedback.

You get the picture.

If you've lasted this long with me I want to say thank you. I don't get thousands of views on my blog or even hundreds but the feedback I do get is great, and it's very appreciated.

Is it possible to get paid as a writer? Of course it is. Is it a long shot from a blog-standpoint? Yes. However since I finished a book (which is being edited right now!) and since I'm writing more, I felt I might as well head towards a goal of a bigger audience right?

That's why I'm now a writer at Medium.com.

My blogs will stay here and you are welcome to enjoy the entries once a month or so, but if you'd like something more like once a week, and you'd like to see the stories that will become the 26 book, you can read them and subscribe directly on medium at: https://alden-olmsted.medium.com.

And yes when enough of you read, I may actually *gasp* get paid.

What a great year this is shaping up to be.

happy humpday

A