Welp, I Ordered Me a Chromebook

A surprisingly hard act to follow!

Some personal history: although I've traditionally written a goodly portion of first drafts by hand (speaking primarily of fiction here), once I get the ball rolling it's nice to have the speed of a keyboard--not to mention it's nice not to have to do quite as much double work, reentering all the text.

On the other hand, I have the attention span of a gnat, and a fully capable large screened computer offers many distractions. Also, having my text all spread out on a big screen a) makes it feel like I'm filling a water tower one drop at a time and b) makes me inclined to endless editing, since I can scan back through bunches of text at once and find fault with it. I compose most of my blog posts in a small Notepad window on my big screen, but that's not really practical for longer work.

Several years back, I discovered and fell in love with Renaissance Learning's Alphasmart word processors, specifically the Neo. They were rugged, their battery life could be measured in months or even years, they displayed just a few lines of text at a time, and they had a great keyboard. Basically, they were a miniature portable typewriter that saved to memory instead of paper. They only did one thing, but they did it well. I've loved mine. However, there are a few caveats: first of all, getting text from the device to the computer can be fairly time consuming and requires cables. I loathe cables. I lose cables. Secondly, the thing looks like a business class Speak and Spell. I never got truly comfortable with using it out in the public eye.

For some time, I've been longing for an Alphasmart successor: a simple, highly portable, unpretentious device which would allow me to create documents and sync them wirelessly.

I briefly owned a lipstick pink Samsung netbook and still remember it with fondness--I wrote a ridiculous number of short stories on that thing--but it was so slow, especially when booting up, and backing up my documents or syncing the between computers took a bit of thought. It was close, but no cigar.

A few years ago, Chromebooks began to pop up. I was mildly intrigued. Google has been a friend of mine since the days of invite-only G-mail and I already had quite a few documents in the Google eco-system. However, at the time, Chromebooks didn't really have any off-line capability (though I'm usually connected, I'd like that now and again), and were almost a public beta. I liked the concept, but didn't feel like they were ready for prime time.

The current crop feels a lot more polished to me, and I've decided to take the leap. I ordered an Asus Flip C100. This device is part tablet as well as part mini-laptop. The keyboard is small, but actually a bit bigger than the netbook of old, so I'm not too worried. It only has a 10.1 inch screen (tablet sized), but it's a nice bright IPS panel, and although 1200x800 is low for a tablet, it's better than the old netbook. I think it'll be very comfortable.

On top of all that, it has a touch screen, and if you flip the keyboard back, you can use it as a tablet. Granted, Chrome OS isn't really optimized for touch right now, and the screen is no iPad Retina thing, but my primary use case would be browsing or looking at PDFs, and I think it will be just fine for that.

You can also stand it up tent style, or flip the keyboard back far enough to use as a stand for watching movies (Netflix and Amazon Prime should both work) or displaying recipes. That covers just about everything I'd like to be able to do with a small portable device. Document editing comes above all, but I've never owned a tablet and, while I'm not expecting anything like iPad performance, I'm intrigued by the possibilities.

It should be here sometime in the next week. More thoughts once I've had a chance to incorporate it into my workflow. It could be the perfect first draft machine--if I can avoid the siren call of other Chrome tabs. The little guy only weighs about two pounds and will fit easily in my writing bag for coffee shop trips and lunch breaks. Best of all, whatever I type will instantly be available from my other computers.

A bonus: this is childish, but I've always kind of wanted to put stickers all over a computer, but have never had one I felt I could decorate like that. I am *so* gonna sticker this little thing once the brand new wears off.

Anyway, I'm tentatively excited.

Just Go To Bed Already

It has come to my attention that my approach to writing often shares similarities with a bratty child's attitude toward bed time.

"I can't go to bed--I need a drink of water first!"
"I can't go to bed--I forgot to brush my teeth!"
"I can't go to bed--I need to go potty!"
"I can't go to bed--I need the nightlight on!"
"I can't go to bed--I don't have my bear!"
"I can't go to bed--I want my *other* bear!

Etc. It's almost the same with writing.

"I'm going to write LOTS, but I can't write in the morning/evening."
"I'm going to write LOTS, but I need x pen/pencil/notebook, and I can't find it."
"I'm going to write LOTS, but I need to be in the mood."
"I'm going to write LOTS, but I don't like what I wrote yesterday, so I should take a break."
"I'm going to write LOTS, but I need x gadget, which I don't already own, so first I'll waste days researching it."
"I'm going to write LOTS, just as soon as I have a day off."

There's always some reason to stall. It's childish and silly and it needs to stop.

Maybe I can try bribing myself with star stickers on a calendar. As I recall, that used to be all that was needed to induce good behavior, once upon a time.

The Most Dangerous Time of the Year, 2013 Edition

This, my friends, is why I should not be allowed to roam Staples unsupervised, especially at back to school time. In my defense, at least some of it was on sale, or even clearance. The pink Signo pens were 50 cents apiece, for example. And I resisted the half-gross container of Ticonderogas.

These were kinda sorta what I went in for. Pencil Revolution just gave them a pretty positive review, and I find them very attractive to boot. (Go look at the photos on Pencil Revolution, not mine!) They were on sale for five dollars for 36 pencils, plus the two bonus erasers, so...how could I resist?

These were purely a curiosity buy. I've seen all-graphite pencils in art stores, but never in an office supply store with the regular pencils. And besides, the packaging is all shiny and stuff... I may do a bit of a review on these at some point, since I've not seen much about them on the web previously. Really curious if they do last longer.

And I pretty much always stock up on composition books this time of year, the more when I can find them with good stiff covers and decent paper--harder and harder these days. I went through all of them looking for Made in Brazil notebooks, and took a gamble on a few of the Made in Egypt ones. You'd think Egypt would know paper, right? We'll see.

Off to play with the new toys!

Are You Good Enough?

A rose I drew awhile back, and almost immediately hid from public

 view, because it's...shoddy. But you know? Shoddy is OK.

This post by Stephanie of Rhodia Drive really struck a chord with me:
Art Making is Accessible to Everyone

I am afraid to mess up. More than that: I am afraid of being found inadequate. In many ways, I've always felt like this. While my brothers happily doodled away as kids, I would set the bar impossibly high, and give up in frustration when I couldn't reach it.

To some extent, I've gotten past this in writing and music--especially music. Yes, I do have moments of frustration. I wish I'd started younger. I wish I was more consistent. I wish certain aspects came to me more intuitively. But I enjoy music within my own limitations, with full knowledge that I'm never going to reach stratospheric greatness.

Writing can be a little more challenging. There are times when I wonder why I work at it at all, because I will never be able to write in the ways some of my favorite authors write. I don't have Vernor Vinge's scientific mind, therefore "I can't write." I don't have Ralph McInerny's grasp of theology and knowledge of academia, therefore "I can't write." I've never suffered extreme poverty or pain, I've not traveled to exotic places, I've not done x, therefore "I can't write."

Getting beyond that, to find my own voice, to accept my own style...this is difficult. But, at least on an intellectual level, I know "all God's creatures got a place in the choir." I'm not, for example, Gene Wolfe. But neither is David McCullough. Neither is Elizabeth Berg or Terry Pratchett, or Jasper Fforde, or Elizabeth Moon, or a multitude of other authors (or casual bloggers) I've enjoyed. Some writers create extravagant and scientifically perfect worlds. Some expose, through meticulous research, a particular period in history. Some simply make you laugh. Some help you to see plain old folks just a little more clearly. Somewhere in that spectrum, there may just be room for me. It may not always be the room I'd prefer at given moments, but...there's room.

Art--as in visual art--has been more challenging still. And I think it may well be key to overcoming what is really a false sort of pride: this fear not even of complete failure, but merely inadequacy. Because it's OK to create art for fun. It's OK to create art imperfectly. It's OK to create art with no larger purpose than simply creating art: for the joy and childlike wonder of exploring artistic expression.

I like this quote from the post on Rhodia Drive. "...they learn to be OK with the quality of their expressions and do it anyway. This was my path. I wanted to make art and so I did."

Blithering Re-entry

I planted some pretty flowers and they're not dead yet! See? Blithering, as promised!

For the last few months, I've felt like I've had nothing worth saying. Thus, I've primarily resorted to the site dedicated almost entirely to people with nothing much to say, and said a lot of nothing on Facebook. But lately, I've had so much nothing to say, I feel like saying nothing on a grander scale. So I'm back. Maybe. Kinda. Lucky you.

Aside from saying a lot of nothing, I continue to be obsessed with music. Along with playing with friends whenever possible, I'm still going to the Wednesday night Irish session at Tugboat Annie's in Olympia, WA most weeks, which is a blast. I'm still getting the tunes under my fingers, but have most of the most common tunes pretty well down, so long as we don't go to warp speed.

A few weeks ago, I got my hands on a tenor banjo.

My Alvarez Minstrel banjo, complete with groovy '70s orange fuzz lined case...

Tenor banjos differ from your average bluegrass or old time banjo in that they have just four strings (no short fifth string off to the side) and a shorter neck, and are played with a plectrum (or pick, if you prefer). For Irish music, tenor banjos are typically tuned GDAE: same as a mandolin or fiddle, but an octave lower, which means all the tunes translate over pretty much instantly, though the banjo has a much longer neck...quite an adjustment there!

It's also much louder than mandolin. This I like. I like a lot.

I'm also back in a pencil phase, after several months of pretty much not writing at all. Summer is a good time for carefree writing utensils! Currently-in-heavy-rotation pencils include the Musgrave Test Scoring 100 (I have a review for these I may post soon if I can get some satisfactory pictures taken) and a few varieties of USA Gold pencils. It's also almost that wonderful time of year: back-to-school sale season. Aren't you excited? Personally, I'm hoping for more 25 cent Norcom composition books, and maybe a chance to stock up on Papermate Black Pearl erasers.

As a final update, I remain utterly enamored of my Kindle Touch. I take back all the bad things I ever said about e-readers. I like the light weight, the flat "pages," the instant bookmarking--lots of little things I'm coming to take for granted. I'm also fortunate to live in an area with a good library system and access to about a zillion Kindle library books. Let me tell you, it's pretty awesome to be able to finish a library book at nine o'clock on a Saturday evening and be able to have a new library book in your hands in moments instead of waiting a long and miserable two days until you can get to the library after work on Monday.

OK, that makes me sound like a junky. But maybe I am, a bit.

Lately, I admit I've mostly been reading rather light fantasy/sci-fi novels (Tad Williams' Otherland series at the moment, and Terry Pratchett's Discworld books). Hey, it's summer, or as well as, though you'd be hard pressed to tell based on the current cold and blustery weather here in the Pacific Northwest. I do have some non-fiction and classics stacked up for later reading, though, plus a bunch of Mary Roberts Rinehart mysteries, plus I want to go back and read the flawed-but-interesting biography Kent Gustavson wrote about Doc Watson, a musical hero of mine to say the least, who passed away on May 29th. What a musician and man he was!

Music 1, NaNoWriMo 0

Musical things I did this week: 
1. Went to two concerts: one jazz/swing, with Paul Anastasio, an excellent fiddler (he played with Asleep at the Wheel, and for Merle Haggard, among others), and also saw Randal Bays, who is a highly decent Irish fiddler and also a great guitarist, both fingerstyle and rhythm (he was the rhythm guitarist on Martin Hayes' first few albums, for those of you who know who Martin Hayes is...)  Both concerts were at a very small local venue, where you could really see what the musicians were doing.  Lots of fun!

2. Went to the local Irish session for the second time.  It's a somewhat humiliating experience in that I don't know the tunes yet, so everyone assumes I'm a rank beginner and treats me with the sort of condescending kindness reserved for beginning musicians in such situations.  They're all very nice--don't get me wrong--but it can be a blow to the ego.  Not that I'm advanced, but...I know I'm better than I seem to be.  I hate that feeling.  The other frustrating aspect is that the mandolin is *so* much quieter than a whole crowd of fiddles and whistles, so I can't hear myself at all.  Even on the tunes I do know, I have to more or less hope my fingers are going where they're supposed to, and I'm very reluctant to experiment with playing along on tunes I don't know well because I can't hear how wrong or right I am.

We shall see how this develops.  I'm determined to go regularly and really work on learning the music, no matter what, but I'm developing fiddle envy.  The concerts didn't help this.

3. Practiced "some whole bunch," as a younger sibling used to say, including visiting a friend so we could practice Emma's Waltz, which we're going to do as a duet at the open mic portion of a monthly jam we both attend.

And I'm working on chords (memorizing plus executing), a bit of theory (modes and scales, mostly), and trying to learn the Irish session tunes, one or two at a time.  It will be a long while before I've got even a fraction of them down well enough to play at full speed. :\  But you have to start somewhere.  I also foolishly picked up a pennywhistle this week, and have been goofing around with that.  Too fun!

NaNoWriMo stuff I did this week:
OK, so maybe it isn't quite a *zero* score.  I have about thirty letter-sized pages written as of this afternoon, which I'm hoping to transcribe over the next few days.  But even though the story is fun and the narrator interesting, I'm really struggling to stay focussed and motivated.  I had some time off this week due to the wisdom teeth yanking on Monday (which went fine, by the way), and hoped to get ahead of the game, but I figure I'm about a day behind instead (hopefully a bit less by later today).  Here's hoping the time change helps give me a boost over the next few days.  I've learned from past NaNoWriMos that morning writing time is the make-it-or-break-it element for me: I simply cannot just make up for it in the evening.  My mind doesn't work well at night.  At all.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I gotta go play "Cup of Tea" about eleventy billion more times.

View From Inside the Kaleidescope

This is the way my mind works.

Mini-Typecast, Lame Photo Update Just to Update

I'm getting a bunch o' ink samples, mostly Diamine.  It's my first time trying this service of theirs, and I'm pretty excited.

Speaking of inky things, this stuff is pretty awesome for a number of cleaning duties, one of which is getting ink out of the bathroom sink...

However, the lack of the apostrophe in the official name was driving me crazy...so I added one.

Lousy photo of today's fountain pen rotation: Bling (Pelikan M200, Noodler's Air Corp Blue-Black ink), Stealth (Lamy 2000, Noodler's Black), Click (Pilot Vanishing Point, Private Reserve Midnight Blues) and What The...??? (Rotring Core, Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses)

Update Just to Update: Self-Derision and Hot Coffee Edition

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??

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.

Neocast: Confessions of a NaNo procrastinator

Well, I'm officially behind in NaNo world. This doesn't usually happen to me. I'm not one of those obnoxious overachievers who write ten thousand words in the first few days and finish the fifty thousand within the first week or two at most, but I usually stay slightly ahead of the game, coasting over the finish line comfortably ahead of schedule on about the 25th. But this year has been something of a struggle. In addition to my run in with the law, I've had quite a number of days when I wasn't able to get in a morning writing session because of appointments or having to be at work before hours. Lack of morning writing time is the kiss of death for me--I find writing in the evening to be a serious and often futile struggle. I've also not been able to squeeze in lunchtime writing--even fifteen minutes of writing by hand would help, but work has been busy and I've been trying to do the whole thing on the typewriter, which I can't easily use at work, so that's been out.

And now I have a cold. And my ribbon is getting light(er) but I feel guilty about changing it when there are starving writers elsewhere with ribbons in shabbier condition than mine, so I just keep using it and feeling dissatisfied. And I miss the coffee house but know I'd get nothing done if I went there with a typewriter--I'd end up setting it aside in embarrassment and diving into a book.

To add to my crabbiness, I'm now at that horrible part in the novel when I no longer feel capable of picking the perfect words--something that seemed to come easily in the first twenty thousand words or so--and the climax is still a long way away, and I have words to write in order to get there--necessary words, and I more or less know what events have to happen, so it's not just fill, but...ugh. I'm not feelin' it. And my characters keep babbling about nothing--useless stuff I'll have to chisel out later. And to add to the pressure, one of my characters invited a guy she barely knows to her parents' house for Sunday dinner (and there will be lots of extended family, too), and he actually accepted. We're all three of us surprised and nervous and are digging in our heels so hard it's a wonder we aren't going backward. If there's one thing I hate, it's crowds. And for sheer embarrassment and mental anguish, the only thing worse than crowds is a crowd of people who are all related to you: people with a special knack for embarrassing you or angering you because they know you a little better than anyone really has a right to--or think they do, which is even worse. And now I have to not only dive into this experience, but try to recreate it in great detail. I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. So I keep stalling instead.

Tomorrow I may take the Neo to the coffee house (and leave any books at home, so it's either write or sit there staring off into space with a funky looking object laying on the table in front of me) and see if I can dash off a few thousand words in the morning. OK, so it isn't a typewriter. It also doesn't weigh fifteen or twenty pounds, and I don't have to worry about carrying along paper or fret that I'm bothering people with my noisy clack ding routine. I would say it's the most practical writing machine I own (sorry gang, but it's true), and I should probably take more advantage of that. I'm not sure it's any less likely to make me a pariah, however. We need some special hats for Alphasmartians venturing off into public places, too....

Snobbery, Guilt and the Writing Life

So...back, for a moment, to the meandering writing-about-writing essay posts instead of yet another UJTU.

For no logical reason and no personal historical reason I can think of, writing for me is a hobby which I mention in a whisper, blushing, turning away. I announce proudly that I play music, however badly; I'll happily talk about my limited crocheting skills with anyone who is interested; I blather on contentedly about my pets, the books I've read, my dabbling with calligraphy, my bike--anything and everything else. But I mention my writing habit only in passing; guiltily and slightly defiantly as if confessing to compulsive gambling or a drinking problem, daring someone to help me mend my ways.

I think it's partly for this reason that the more obvious tools of the trade--machines that can be used for nothing else--are something I have a very hard time revealing in public. I've taken my Neo with me to the coffee house dozens of times, gotten it out a handful of times, written maybe a few hundred words at best. Oh, when I took it to write-ins in Colorado, I used it a lot, when I knew I was in the company of other addicts who would overlook my flaws, but in general...I feel all eyes on me, and I want to drop through the floor. Pen and paper are a refuge in public, because I could be doing anything: homework, a journal (which seems less wrong, somehow, than "real" writing), business work. But typewriters and Alphasmarts are the tools of the author: blatant, in your face, pure writing machines. Couple that with the idea of the unmistakable look-at-me sound of a busy typewriter, and I'm terrified.

I suppose I feel like an impostor, a pretender, a poseur. And then, I tell myself, "real" writers don't need to take refuge in tools, in the romance of obsolete tools and beautiful gadgets. Real writers simply write.

Which brings me to the second portion of this mind-wandering: despite all of what I've said above, I like writing tools, particularly those that do nothing else. I get obsessed with pens and typewriters. I love the physicality of writing in analog, the smell of a typewriter and the feel of pressing the keys, the sound of them, the bell at the end of a line; I like the look of fountain pen ink drying on a page, feel of a smooth nib on good paper; I love the crinkle of pages, the heft of them. I feel like I write better with these things, write differently than I do with the current, typical tools. But is that real? Or is that a trick of the mind--do I like tinkering with them, and therefore convince myself that they work better for me so I have an excuse to use them instead of more efficient and common means? And if so, does it really matter? If it works for me, if I enjoy it, why should I care how I make the journey or what others think? But I remain afraid that I'll be seen as a snob: as pursuing a romantic notion of what it means to write, to the detriment of actually writing.

And above all, *am* I that snob? I wonder sometimes. If I completely let go of the tools and just used word processors like everyone else, would my writing really suffer? In comparing work done on the computer with work I've started on paper--one way or another--I'm not sure. I think I do better with clear drafts, but how much of that is a mental block?

Aaaand, on a somewhat lighter note, despite all of the above, I admit to spending some time over the last few days cruising eBay and what-have-you for smallish, quietish typers with the idea of, at the least, doing some outdoor typing come spring. I'm down to four portables and could drop that further, and the smallest typewriter I have with a reliable case is the heavier of the SM-9s. Not exactly easy to drag around. I've kind of been looking at Lettera 32s, despite my apathetic comments in the past re: their appearance. Too bad there don't seem to be that many of them around at a decent price...and I *never* see them locally.

Empty.

By rights, today I should be posting something deep and thoughtful about the young woman who inspired my blog's name, the Little Flower herself: St. Therese of the Child Jesus. The first of October is her feast day. I did go so far as to spend some time reading a few passages from Story of a Soul, but I'm once again unable to write.

It's so painful to have the drive, but nothing to say. I know it's mostly just a matter of doing. I need to start sitting down again in the mornings with pen and paper or what-have-you and letting whatever happens happen, good or bad. It just feels like nothing I have to say matters at the moment, ya know? I hate to even post to other people's blogs, 'cause I feel like all I can do is babble right now, and I'm just endlessly annoying everyone by existing. :-\

In happier writing news (perhaps!) the great NaNoWriMo forum purge is occurring as we speak, and in short order here we'll be barreling toward the starting line. If that doesn't get you excited about writing, what will?

OK, enough with the pity party. I need reading material, folks!

As Speculator pointed out in response to my whine last week, often doing more reading can help one out of a writing slump. With that in mind, and considering I still have a bit more summer for summer reading (I won't consider my summer over until after my Dad's visit next month), any suggestions? I like both fiction and non, and in fiction like pretty much everything from classic lit to mysteries to thrillers to sci-fi to literary type books. Not real big on fantasy unless it's superbly well done (a la Tolkein) or mixed with other genres. Also not real big on endless sci-fi series where the books don't stand on their own. And I don't do explicit, as you might have guessed.

Got recommendations?

Still plugging away at a couple of short stories (and my NaNoWriMo '08 story, which may never get finished), but this week has been another week of rewriting the same paragraphs over and over until I want to start throwing things. But the Ambassador is a bit hard to throw, and I'm not risking my pens, so I just stew.

JuST making excuses

I didn't write yesterday and haven't written much today because I JuST got braces. And had four teeth out. I've got crowding issues that were starting to catch up with me, and it was either get braces or have on-going problems that would likely cost at least as much...so I chose the braces.

I feel like a total dork, not to mention like I have the front end of a large automobile caught in my teeth. And I feel like I'm going to be living as an awkward adolescent *again* for two years in my early thirties.

On the other hand, all that angst is sure to generate some writing ideas, right?

My initial reaction to my friend saying I should really take a before picture showing all my teeth...

OK, so I can *sort* of smile, too.

I still feel like a dork. And man, that's a lot of metal.