Black and grey realism tattoo of a vintage typewriter on the back, with a quote above and the words think, write, create below.

Typewriter with quote across the back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A vintage typewriter is shown in detailed black and grey shading, with keys, platen and paper carriage rendered in tonal gradients. A quote in serif lettering sits above the machine and the words think, write, create appear beneath it. The composition is centred and the lettering is crisp against smooth skin.

Realism Lettering Back Quote Text

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Pargeter's rule is plain enough: no clattering after eleven, not in the Admiral's Rest, where the floorboards carry a cough from the top landing down to the scullery. You break it anyway, because the wind off the harbour has been leaning on the window for three nights and the sentences have stacked up behind your teeth like crates on a quay. The machine is an Olympia she keeps in the hall cupboard for guests who claim to be writing novels. You are not claiming anything. You are only hungry.

Keep reading

So you strike the keys gently, the way a person knocks on a door they hope will stay shut. The paper is foolscap from the stationer in Saltcombe. Below the window the pier lamps go out one by one. Mr Ashdown, the retired lighthouse keeper in room four, bangs his stick twice against the wall, which in his language means keep going, I can't sleep either. Under the floor the tide is working at the shingle, and you begin typing what it sounds like.

On the third night the carriage jams on the letter k. Freeing it, you find a folded page wedged in the roller, thin as tissue, in a hand that leans hard to the right. It belonged to a lodger called Iris, who left in March without paying. Her last line was half typed: Tell them the sea is not the enemy, only the loudest thing in the room. Someone had written beneath it in pencil, finish it.

You do not know who to tell. You roll a clean sheet in, feel the platen grip, and type the first word without hurrying. Across the bay the ferry sounds its horn, long and then short, and for once the house does not stir. It is nearly morning, and the page is almost full.