In Search of a Robotic Typing Monkey.
On a forum that I frequent, someone asked how my search for a creature to do my bidding was going. Not like that, you pervert. Well at least until they had clocked off - Because I wouldn't be doing it for their enjoyment. At all. By bidding, I obviously mean the typing up of my novel from its current hand written form to something a little more binary.
See back in 2007 I participated in something so extra-ordinary that it wasn't just ordinary and it needed an "extra-" to be concatenated at index 0. (If that makes little sense to you, then imagine how little sense it makes to me). It was NaNoWriMo, and it still is. (Linky to the opposite of lefty -> ) The objective is to write a 50,000 novel in 30 days. While I succeeded in finely handcrafting each sentence to get to the 50,000 word mark (in case you were wondering, the word in question wasn't "Mark", although now that I think of it, he would have been a fitting subject. Hello Mark), the novel wasn't finished. I didn't let that stop me though. I wanted the novel typed in all its error-scrawled first draft glory, so I set about finding someone to do it.
The search started quite well, I corresponded with several viable candidates, all of whom were eminently qualified (and were dutifully encouraged to tell me what the word eminently meant, because I had no idea, and to some extent I still don't). After what I thought was a rather productive on-line meeting with the pet of a Nigerian Prince I was encouraged to send $100,000 (that’s US Dollars, not the ill-fated Matt Bucks I tried to launch in late nineties to less than critic acclaim) as a show of faith. It was sent, but after several months I hadn’t heard anything, so I sent another hundred grand to show him just how faithful I was capable of being. It came to nothing though, as that monkey went on to invest that money with Bernie Madoff, so the joke’s on him I guess.
After that particular episode I, with my funds severely depleted, I altered my criteria so now I wasn't just looking for someone who had low standards, but for someone who wasn't just cheap and free, but could also provide their own transport too. Where-ever would I find someone like that? It was then it hit me. Well, the branch did and after a brief stint of tree surgery without any pain-relief (well, that’s not entirely true – I did have several hits of nitrous oxide beforehand), it was back to my quest to find that monkey. And I knew that I had to continue my search on the Internet, because putting that ad in the back of Razzle only firmed up my weekend social life.
And find him on the Internet I did, dear reader. We hit it off instantly, well as well as a man and a drug-addled robotic monkey could. Although, looking back I think we just got on well, because he copied my Facebook profile, but hey I was glad to have the friend that got me to the magic 2 friends.
So that brings us up to last Thursday when my friend posted this (and asked me for hundred grand in Matt Bucks)
Matt, I love you and will be yours forever, but what happened to you finding a robotic typing monkey?
This is the answer that I gave:
It was all downhill after he moved in. And we got on so well while chatting online. After a week or two he insisted on his "friend" crashing on the couch. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and they'd be flinging sh*t at one another. It didn't help that he would fling robotic faeces at me, either. I don't know what he had been eating, but lemme tell you, there were bolts in it. And those bolts hurt. On top of that his first act of typing my glorious magnum opus was to wipe his behind with it. Everyone is a critic. With his inner editor working overtime, he gave up after two pages and eloped with a writer who he claimed "at least had a shot" at literary aspirations and wasn't just some "genre hack", leaving me with his freeloading friend. The only upside was that his “friend” was delicious, if not a little stringy but the “friend” hasn't been listed as missing in any of the five boroughs, yet.
So at least I got a free meal out of it.
So the search continues. If you, or anyone you know is a robotic typing monkey, or even just a house-trained typing monkey without a hint of robot ancestry, then drop me a line. Although I'd prefer it if you didn't drop any lines as that just shows a lack of typing comprehension and will make what little sense there is in the story vanish.
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