Shiny New Word Machine

There's no way to show you how pretty this screen is, so instead of even trying, here's a lousy flash-ridden camera phone shot...

This week, after a research and shopping frenzy which rivaled that of my hypothetical toaster shopper, I purchased a new MacBook Pro Retina 13". Honestly, there's nothing wrong with the "old" mid-2010 MacBook Pro it replaces, but I've been trying to do more writing directly on the computer (traitorous, I know, but it's a skill I need to develop), and frequently this writing takes place away from home, so the light weight and superb battery life of the new models appealed. Also, my sister wants to buy my older one, so I had additional incentive to upgrade. Also, Apple just updated the MacBook Pro line with a minor processor spec bump and Best Buy had the previous generation discounted, plus I had a 10% off coupon, plus a friend had a student coupon she wasn't using.

So I jumped.

I went into all this more or less planning to buy a MacBook Air. The 11.6" model in particular is so, so very portable: not much bigger than an iPad + bluetooth keyboard (neither of which I have), easy to slip into a purse. But then I saw that high-density Retina screen--something no Air has as of this date. Most of the advertising rhetoric surrounding Retina seems to be aimed at photographers and other visual artists, but let me tell you, it makes text a thing of beauty: smooth, solid black. Considering I'm prone to headaches after long days of screen staring, Retina was love at first sight.

There's supposed to be a MacBook Air on the horizon with a Retina screen, and I debated waiting to see how that panned out, but three things (on top of a good price) changed my mind:

• I use dual monitors at work, and LOVE this setup: it lets me easily compare similar documents, or put reference material up on one while writing/working in another, etc., etc., etc. For editing, I'd like to have this option eventually. There are some kludgy ways to attach multiple screens to the Air, but it's not really advised. The Pro, on the other hand, has plenty of ports for making this happen, including full-sized HDMI out, plus two Thunderbolt 2 ports.
• There's no telling how much the Retina Air will cost, and it's a totally new model for Apple and may have some kinks to work out.
• My sister's elderly netbook is on its last legs, and she is pretty eager to get my old one NOW.

So I went to Best Buy, dithered around for about thirty minutes before getting up the nerve to ask one of the sales associates to get the box from the back, and committed.

Thanks to Apple's Migration Assistant, pretty much all I had to do to set up the new system was to press a few buttons, watch a couple more episodes of "The Closer" while the two computers did a mind meld thingie, and boom: it was as if my old computer's brain had been transplanted into a new, sleek body: a body with a GORGEOUS screen and NINE FLIPPIN' HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE.

Granted, I haven't tested that battery life to the extreme, but based on usage so far, I have no reason to doubt it.

I've spent a good amount of time in Scrivener these last few days, and I'm really pleased that I don't have to zoom in nearly as much as usual: fonts are clearer even at small sizes, so I can work with more text on the screen at a time. I can also switch to scaled resolutions (1440x900 or 1680x1050) to fit even more. These resolutions aren't *quite* as perfect as the "Best for Retina" looks-like-1280x800, but still clearer than the old screen.

It's also a good pound lighter than the old system, which matters. Much slimmer as well, making it easy to slip into a bag. No built-in optical drive, but I don't use one all that often.

And have I mentioned the screen?

So yeah, so far, I'm quite happy with it. I shall call it Donald, because Donald is a good name for a Mac, and we shall write many, many stories together.

Old and new...

A Long Walk Makes Everything Better. Mostly.

After a very unrestful Sunday, I arrived at work Monday to discover that my monitor had gone kablooey (technical term), and the day pretty much went downhill from there.  And then this morning, I had to be at work at six.  Yes, I got some breaks during the day, and I got to leave early, kinda, but still...  And so I was crabby today.  And I took some of that crabbiness out on one of our own.  For that, I apologize.

However, we had a little sunshine today, and I got home early enough to take full advantage of it.  I grabbed Cisco's leash, waited a moment for him to come back to earth so I could put it on him, and set out.


It's approaching what I consider the most beautiful time of year here in Washington.  We're still a few days or weeks short--spring seems to have arrived late this year.  The deciduous trees are leafing out, but the leaves are still small.  The trees have an oddly unfinished look, like an incomplete painting: the shape and some under strokes are there, but the vital details have yet to arrive.

Spring is apparent in all sorts of different wildflowers, and other interesting plants.




But there are still signs of the winter we have just departed.  Ferns are still brown around the edges, lacking the green of new growth.


And though later in the year, the sides of the path will be overgrown, right now there are still things left exposed.  Bits of bare branches show, winter-bleached to the color of old bone.


And here and there, in the form of segments of rusted iron rails and wooden railroad ties, I come across signs of the trail's original purpose.


In a few weeks, the grass and weeds and brambles will have taken over again, but for the moment, the trail thinks back, and remembers.

And me?  Feeling more relaxed and less crabby...though less so than I'd be if the trash guys would actually take *all* my trash like I pay 'em to do, instead of only *half* emptying the can.  *sigh*  It's always sumpin.

Cats, Curiosity, and Peurile Paranoia

1. Curiosity
Last night I went to bed way too late, after rigging up a temporary new drawband for the Lettera 33 out of beading wire stuff.  It sort of works, but the carriage still feels wobbly, the margins still aren't catching most of the time, and the carriage occasionally stops short and has to be pushed by hand.  It also isn't always locking into place...you can push it back and forth without releasing some of the time.  So there's obviously something pretty wrong.

This morning, after tossing and turning all night worrying about the thing, I got up early and started in on cleaning the stinky, stinky case.  I set the typewriter off to one side for the time being.  I'd set the damp case in a warm place to dry and was getting ready for work when I heard a weird sort of sound coming from the living room.  I went in to discover Halvah, who has never shown the slightest interest in my typewriters, mashing her head against the keys of the Lettera and purring.  She'd gotten some of the keys jammed.


Blurry cell phone photo of Halvah at work...

And then she *fixed the jammed keys*.  She was still poking at the thing when I left for work.  Considering I haven't cleaned it up yet, I suppose she can't do much harm.  It's already broken.  I'm a little perplexed by her fascination, though.

2. Paranoia
Given all the people who could have commented on my misadventures but didn't, the paranoid portion of my psyche is picturing the denizens of the typosphere around a virtual water cooler, gossiping about me behind my back and looking down their noses at my stupidity (as if y'all don't have better things to do...)

"What an idiot she is, huh?"
"...got what she deserved."
"I'd offer advice, but I'm speechless.  What a knucklehead."
"I'm glad *I* know better than to buy typewriters off eBay, even once every two or three years.  Unlike *her*."
"*I'd* never spend more than $7 for a typewriter.  They're everywhere, after all, no matter what she claims.  I mean, I picked up six last week for thirty bucks!"
"Taking typewriters to a repairman is a sign of weakness."

In my defense against these imaginary critics, in the entire last year, I bought three typewriters, and I sold one of the three.  I've taken a grand total of one typewriter in for repair, back in 2009.  As for why I risked eBay, in all my years of looking, I've found about four manual typewriters at local thrift stores, three of which were late-model SCMs (my Galaxie is the one of the three I kept--the others were scrubbed clean and received new ribbons, but ultimately went to new homes) and the fourth was the Olympia SM-9 I sent off recently.  I've never ever ever ever found an Olivetti Lettera of any kind locally, the closest to it being the Olivetti Studio I traded for at the type-in.  It isn't a Lettera, and it wasn't truly local.

And as for repairs, as I confirmed last night, I don't have the patience, the skill, and (perhaps most importantly) the tools.  There's only so much I can do with a five dollar mini-toolkit, a cheap hammer, and a pair of tweezers.  It'd probably cost me as much to put together a decent work bench as it would to pay to have someone with good eyesight and, you know, actual skill.

Also, I don't have the luxury of having x number of a particular model so I can compare the broken with the functional.

I did at least *try* to fix it.  Can I get partial credit for that, you faceless imaginary Internet naysayers??

Modern Convenience Revisited

Remember this?  Well...that was pretty much my weekend.  Ugh.  I finally got rid of my giant old tube TV, which made scary popping and sparking noises the last few times I turned it on, starting in about July.  Incidentally, it steadfastly refused to do so when I finally found someone to help me take it to be recycled, and he (the guy taking it away) asked me to demonstrate what was wrong...so now I'm all worried I got rid of it for nothing.  But it took me several months to get someone to help me, and every time I'd dared try it in the meantime, it was making That Noise...so hopefully I did right.  But in any case, the good behavior at the last moment adds fuel to the fire with regards to the obsessive thinking I've been enduring.

I'm getting a tax refund this year, so I was hoping to use that (with a little extra) to buy a very basic new TV, mostly just for DVDs and maybe streaming a few things from the computer.  But gee-willikers TVs are complicated these days!  Not only are there apparently about ten times as many brands as there used to be, but they come in way more sizes and price ranges, not to mention have more detailed specs than the average computer: refresh rates, sizes, resolutions, upscaling stuff to let them display regular older TV content (something like that), internet capability,  and all sorts of other whatsits.  And every single model has at least some people claiming it ruined their life and the customer service people of TV Company X kicked their dog and insulted their mother when they tried to ask for help.  It's a scary world out there.  And I'm now crippled by the fact that I have enough knowledge to be completely bewildered.  Yay me!

I really hate on-line research.  There's never one right answer.  And for big ticket items, I hate the responsibility of choosing one single option.  *sigh*  As a friend used to put it, I want an angel with a flaming pie to swoop down to tell me what to do.  And when it comes to guidance in consumer electronics, I don't think the heavens are really gonna spare me a flaming pie.

2010 NaNoWriMo by Pencil: Week Three Report

Whew, what a week.  I say this in both good and bad senses, but in all senses, it took away from my word production.

To begin with, last weekend my most local brother and sister-in-law welcomed their first son into the world.  What with waiting for news, fretting, and the flurry of phone calls and the posting of photos and everything else after his birth--plus all my usual weekend errands--I struggled to get much writing in.  Did OK, but didn't get caught up, as I'd hoped.

Monday, I thought.  Monday, I'll write like a mad woman.  I was going to hit that halfway mark by the end of Monday if it killed me.

And then the power went out.

Now, in some cases, this would be an opportunity for me to chortle with glee at the shortcomings of higher tech writing methods as I scribbled nonchalantly onward.  Couple problems with this: first of all, in Washington State in the winter, it's dark an awful lot of the day.  When it's pouring rain and windy, it's dark *all* day.  I do not currently own a battery powered lantern or a book light.  I couldn't see to write.  Tried writing by flashlight, but it really didn't work.

Secondly, within a few minutes of losing power at home, my pager started screaming bloody murder because the power to the data center at work had also gone out, and the equipment was Very Worried.   And it was my responsibility to calm it down and babysit.  I got some sleep that night, but the early morning hours and all the next day were spent dealing with the outage (over twelve hours at work) and its aftermath.

And then I had a reading assignment I had to finish.  So Tuesday night, with the power finally restored at home, I read until midnight, went to bed too keyed up to sleep, and then had to get up again Wednesday morning at five.  Wednesday morning I squeezed in a few words between the church thing and work, but in the evening, I had a dinner thing and didn't get home until about nine.  I crawled into bed and fell asleep instantly.

Now here, I'm sure someone is going to say, "Well, *I* would have stayed up until ten and gotten an hour's worth of writing in, you lazy good-for-nothing."  To you, I say two things: Well lah-dee-dah, and Bah!  I'm a morning person, and even on a good night, my brain goes into power-save mode after about eight, and that night I was so tired everything around me seemed sort of squished and muffled.  I could barely remember my own name, let alone put strings of words together.  I probably would have awoken in the middle of the night with drool on my notebook and graphite on my face and no words written.

I did, however, set my alarm for early the next morning, in hopes of getting some words in before work.  It was a futile hope.  I slept through the alarm.  I double-checked the clock when I did wake up, and it was set correctly; but I have absolutely no memory of it going off, not even as part of a dream.  *sigh*

I still managed to stagger across the 25k line during lunch on Thursday: the line I'd hoped to sprint across clear back on Monday.  Only three days behind.  Yay me.

I'll spare you the details of the rest of the week.  Let's just say the challenges continued.  I only get a thirty minute lunch but usually can cram writing in...but we were too busy for that this week.  And there was more family stuff.  Unexpected schedule changes.  Unexpected obligations.

I'm still hoping to finish this thing in time, but it's liable to be down to the wire.  The lack of morning and lunchtime writing time was the kiss of death this past week, so hopefully I can squeeze in at least some this week.  Thanksgiving will probably be a lost day, and I work Friday, so no extra time there.   There's next weekend, at least.

OK, enough of all that.  This week's stats:

• Composition book pages killed: I passed 200 tonight (I'm at 203), which would mean a new notebook if this one wasn't poorly made...but it is, so I got twelve bonus sheets / twenty four bonus pages.  I'll finish filling it up tomorrow or Tuesday.
• Pencils obliterated: the Helix Oxford is dead.  Or at least mostly dead.  I used it down to little more than a nubbin before reluctantly tossing in into the shorty jar.
• Word count: around 31465, which means I'm about two days behind.  However, on Thursday I was three days behind, so hey, progress!

Pencil Achievement Awards:

• Coolest ferrule: the classic Ticonderoga has an unfair advantage in this category.  I mean...look at it!  It has those distinctive and handsome yellow and green stripes, that textured band across the middle.  There is none cooler.  However, I would like to give honorable mention to the Mongol--that's it smack dab in the middle of the photo above.  Not only does it look interesting, but the eraser isn't crimped in, so you can yank it out and pop it back in.  It amuses me.
• For courage under fire: OK, so courage is a strong word.  So is fire.  But I would like to publicly apologize to the Palomino for calling its lettering silver when it's actually pale gold.  Also for breaking off a big chunk of lead this week because I was careless when sharpening.  Sorry, little guy!

The story is...going.  No, actually it's working pretty well, aside from the whole being behind thing.  As I mentioned in one of my comments on last week's post, I've settled into a different period and plot than I originally intended: I fell in love with a few of the characters in the backstory, so they've become the primary story line instead.  Why? Because I'm the author, and I said so.

Vanity, thy name is LFP

So...for practice purposes, to show the others how these tunes string together, I recorded a very quick-and-dirty version of the set of tunes a few friends and I are working on: Jeremy Moonshine/Lilting Banshee/Boys of Tandragee. And then, unrelatedly and serendipitously, I stumbled on Dropbox, and the fact that it allows you to upload and share things. And so I'm testing this. In theory, here be the recording. I'm curious if this actually works OK!

If it does, keep in mind this is a bare bones recording prior to our doing any arranging, so it's pretty simplistic and warts-and-all. It's like a preliminary sketch of a painting, so it's minus the detail and color.

Things I did this weekend (some more momentous than others)

1. Went for a seven mile walk with the dog. Lots of good thinking time, and it was absolutely lovely out there this weekend: seventies and sunshine. About time.

2. Mowed the lawn. Not exciting, but it looks nice.

4. Went to the library for still more books. Mostly light-reading brain candy this time - mysteries and such. Hey, it's summer. Speaking of mysteryish stuff, how come nobody told me about that Robert Goddard guy before now? I really enjoyed Beyond Recall. A little bit of ickiness, but mostly just implied, and his writing is superb - strong characters, vivid descriptions, interesting twists and juxtapositions. I'll be seeking out more of his work.

3. Finished filling up the brain dump notebook I've been using for several years now. Bittersweet, that. Rather than starting a brand new one, I'm switching to a small black leather-look Miquelrius notebook I've used for other things in the past. It's bulkier than the pocket Moleskine, doesn't have an elastic strap to keep it together in my purse, and doesn't open flat...but it does have pretty decent paper. I think I can manage.

4. FINISHED MY NANOWRIMO NOVEL!!!!!! Woo-hoooooo!!! I can't tell you how psyched I am about this. I stayed up way too late last night finishing it, especially considering I have to be at work early this morning, but I was so close, I knew I had to press on if I was going to get any sleep. I think I wrote about five thousand words yesterday...the finish line kept moving on me, and I kept discovering additional scenes that really needed to be in there to make the whole thing make sense. It's still very short, but considering my usual tendency runs the other way, I guess I can live with a short but relatively cohesive plot.

It's a rough draft, and it has some timeline issues and scenes with major rough edges and a few loose ends that need to be woven in, but on the whole, I am very pleased with it. It's more "me" than just about anything else I've ever written - no one's style but my own, for better or worse. And I felt like I really knew the characters and, actually, rather liked them all, even the bad ones.

I'll give it until the end of the summer before I start editing. But as first drafts go, it isn't as bad as it might be.

I'm going to celebrate tonight by buying myself ice cream...and possibly a copy of this year's Writer's Market. :-)

Things I learned from this novel:

a. I work best on paper. Absolutely no question in my mind anymore. I switched to the Neo for awhile in the middle and did OK, but I'm just more comfortable with pen and paper (or, sometimes, typewriter), especially (for some reason) for dialog. Even today's long slog ended up being me writing a half dozen pages with pen and paper, transcribing, going back to pen and paper, transcribing...etc. The words flow without an issue on paper, but on the screen, they come awkwardly or not at all. I do think it's better to transcribe pretty quickly, though, or it's easy to get bogged down in a moment and lose track of the overall arc of the story.

b. I do best if I don't over plan or over think. Times when I sat down and just went with the flow turned out much better than the scenes I planned ahead of time in excruciating detail. Looking back, much of my best writing was done during NaNoWriMo, under a time crunch. That said, the best writing is the writing I was doing without a lot of planning, but with a slower method of writing - I really do like the handwritten work. I was writing spontaneously, but not so quickly the ideas came out ragged.

c. It's really better to just keep slogging through with a project. I had some major gaps between when I wrote the first part and when I finished, and although it worked out just fine, it did take awhile to get back into character, so to speak. I have a few of my other novels I want to finish up, and this is one reason I've put them off. It's a lot easier to finish a story when you're in a place where you can see the characters clearly, feel them, know their motivations and weaknesses and goals, than it is to come back years later when you have to get to know them all over again.

But it's finished! What a rush! I know it's only a matter of time before reality sets in again, but I'll ride this wave as long as I can.

Moving right along....

As my facebook friends already know, a lot has happened in the less than a week since my last post. Although I've kinda sorta been looking for a new place off and on for the last few *years*, it wasn't until right after my little rant that the perfect place came up. The location alone (right on the walking/bike trail, outside of town where it turns wooded and quiet) got me so excited I had trouble sleeping that night. I'd sent off an e-mail straight off asking if I could come by, but the next day I decided on the direct approach, and drove on over. It's a wonderful little house, all clean and bright and cheerful, with nice neighbors and room for thedog--and, as I said, *right* next to the trail, so I can meander and think to my heart's content. And ride my bike to work again (work is also right on the trail), once it isn't so dark in the mornings. I love that.

I've already signed an agreement and figured out move dates. And I've already broken the news to my current landlord, so it's all official. I'm a little dizzied by how fast this has happened after so much searching and discouragement. It's like a story. Almost doesn't seem real. I'm liable to feel pretty unsettled right up until I close the door of the current place for the last time and drive off into the sunset.

I feel like I was a little too harsh on it (and my current landlord) in my last post. Yes, it has a plethora of issues, some of them serious. But it hasn't been such a bad deal, all around. And as for my landlord...well, the poor guy never *asked* to be a landlord. He inherited me and this place and all its issues, and I think is embarrassed by the language barrier, among other things. Trying to make repairs or really analyze the place while I'm there is very awkward for him, so he's just avoided it, for the most part. It may actually be a relief that I'm going so he can finally really deal with it, I dunno. He hasn't actually spoken to me since I brought over the letter and made sure it was understood, so I'm a little nervous I won't get away without *some* sort of fuss, but..so far so good.

Now comes the packing and moving part! I have until the end of the month, which is approaching at alarming speed. One of the big concerns is that the new little house is, in fact, little. The current mobile is a double-wide, and actually pretty spacious. The new place is a tiny two bedroom bungalow with no real storage space to speak of, other than an outdoor shed. Much paring down will need to occur. In a lot of ways, this will be very good for me--force me to decide on what matters and clean up my packrat tendencies. However, sadly this will likely mean that many of the typers will be on the block, possibly including Bernard. Ulp. I'm going to stall on that decision for a few days, but if the Pacific Northwestern typospherians see a sudden glut of well-worn typers appear on Craigslist, it's my fault. I'm thinking I should really pare down to just one standard and maybe two or three portables, probably the nicer SM-9, the Galaxie and the rather chintzy Olivetti-Lettera-35l-inabag I picked up on a whim a month or so ago, just 'cause it's tiny and reminds me (for reasons I reserve for a future typecast) of my childhood teddy bear.

Other revelations of packing: good gracious I have a lot of paper! It was spread throughout the house, but I packed up most of my notebooks last night, and the result makes me feel both gloating and sheepish. Most of 'em are cheap composition notebooks, plus a few Rhodia pads and some of the lovely HP paper I use for Circa stuff and the scrap paper I use for typed drafts and the box of what's left of the onion skin paper I got from Duffy Moon. Two whole milk-crates full of unused paper, not counting the loose stuff. Makes me want to sit down in the middle of the floor and start scribbling.

And packing books tempts me to stop what I'm doing and read "just a few lines".

Which is why it's a good thing I'm starting ahead of time....

I am easily distracted.

But man, is this exciting or what??

Tuesday Grab Bag: Oscar the Grouch and a Rant of My Own

1. What with it being Sesame Street's 40's anniversary, Google has been displaying a different Sesame Street character or grouping every day for about the past week: Big Bird, The Count, Cookie Monster, and of course, Oscar the Grouch. This weekend I did a lot of procrastinating by means of YouTube, rewatching some of the old Sesame Street songs and such. I'm not old enough to remember the first episodes (Sesame Street was already just shy of seven by the time I come along), but even so....

This was one of my favorites when I was little, which probably says...something. And I wasn't sure how to take the fact that I could *still* sing along with all the lyrics. Is this *really* a good thing for young minds? ;-) Fun, though.


2. I didn't write much yesterday because I was too ticked off. I live a short distance from an Interstate exit that has been the bane of my existence ever since I've lived here. I've mentioned my driving phobias...well, this thing ranks near the top of my list, scaring me daily. It's one lane, with no traffic light at the end, and there's a HUGE truck stop to the left, which means we get numerous big rigs wanting to go in that direction, which backs the traffic up clear to the interstate and beyond. As a fix, everyone forms two lanes--one right, one left, with *both* sides actually partially on the shoulder--the shoulders are nice and wide. It's been that way ever since I've been here. If you aren't from around here or don't follow that unwritten rule, you get honked at. If you're timid about driving partially on the shoulder, you get yelled at or honked at. If you get into the left lane, which is *slightly* more in the main roadway than the right, and then try to turn right when you finally get up to the end, you're apt to cause an accident. It's just a nightmare, but for the most part, it works. On at least a few occasions I've been on that ramp when police officers were also getting off, also following the unwritten rule of the two lanes.

Soooo last night I get off the interstate and do exactly what I do every single flippin' night, and get pulled over by a state patrol guy who just chews me out before I can really say much, saying that driving on the shoulder is a big bad no-no (actually back home you can pass on the right if you're still on the pavement...) that I should know better, that I could have hurt one of the homeless people who live in the parking area nearby and sometimes wander onto the ramp in the dark, that it doesn't matter that hundreds of cars do that every single day, that's no excuse. Meanwhile, the whole time we're sitting there as he slowly, slowly handwrites the ticket, car after car after car after car is coming down that right "lane" or driving on the shoulder on the left.

I've only ever gotten one other ticket in my life, and that was for not noticing I'd gone from a 70mph zone to a 60mph zone early on a Sunday morning with no other drivers on the road. I'm beyond ticked off that this could go on my record, and I basically can't even *drive* that ramp without doing exactly as I did, so apparently I have to find a back way home or risk getting another $100-plus ticket. I'm also going to go to court with it, I guess, which may or may not accomplish anything but letting me have my say. Considering that I don't *do* public speaking, I'll probably get up there and shake and not be able to say a word, but...maybe the unfairness of it all will loosen my tongue.

Did I mention that all the while this exit has been a problem for *years*, there are now *THREE* traffic circles on the back way, even at intersections where there wasn't much of a problem? So to avoid this exit, I get to drive through at least two of the three. But it's apparently what I have to do to avoid breaking the law, just like every other person taking that exit.

*breathe**breathe*

3. Due to the above, I'm still at less than 16k words for NaNoWriMo. I'm kind of hoping to make 18k today. We'll see. I should try to work my rant into my story. Lot of word potential there, and it'd be cathartic.

Index Card Circa Hack

I've started using the typewriters again heavily, after several months of mostly writing by hand. As a result, I'm using the Circa/Rollabind notebooks again quite a bit. I like that I can put all my typewritten pages in a notebook for easy perusal, and with the knowledge that if one morning I get up and decide to hit the coffee house and write by hand for awhile, I can do that in the same notebook.

In anticipation of November and for my own use now, I wanted a way to store/display index cards in the notebook. The ideal solution would probably be some of Levenger's Dock-it pages, but I'm on a Levenger fast for the time being, and nice as they are, I'm still not sure they're worth the amount it'd cost me to get them, especially with Levenger's high shipping costs factored in. Instead, I came up with this solution.

At Office Depot, I picked up a package of 3-ring binder inserts intended for 3 x 5" photos. They only have four pockets on a page, and only on one side (Levenger's obviously have considerably more, and are far heavier in weight), but cards can face backwards since the page is clear on both sides. Each pocket can hold a decent sized stack of cards.

I trimmed off the side tab with the three holes, reinforced the section next to that with masking tape, and Circa punched. I also had to trim the top of the page a little bit so it wouldn't stick out.



The final result: it works pretty well! I'm proud of myself. And a package of ten pages is under three dollars at Office Depot, for a total of 80 visible pockets, with space for far more cards than are immediately visible. More than likely I'll only add one or two of these to each notebook, and use them primarily for storage of cards related to the story I'm currently working on--character sketches, items and events to remember to include, maps, etc. So long as I can see the top card in each stack, I'm good.

One more view:


In other news, I'm most of the way through the first draft of Yet Another Short Story, and Stinky and I dashed down the first few paragraphs of the one after that this evening. Hey, if you're gonna write smoky bar scenes, Stinky is the typewriter to go to. He's had a hard life, and he knows his way around.