Last year, I experimented with writing using pen and paper, hoping that the slower speed would result in better writing and that the transcription stage would introduce a valuable editing. It didn’t: I transcribe first, edit later, making only slight changes to the hand-written text. So I went back to writing using keyboards. All was good. I finished a novel and settled in to edit another one.
Then my tech started dying.
My main computer, a hulking PC which was the centre of my universe (and, crucially, my Dropbox root), decided it didn’t want to go online after an OS update. A dirt-cheap network card plugged into an empty slot on my six-year-old motherboard did nothing to resolve the issue. So my main machine no longer has an internet presence. Which means it doesn’t have access to the printer or the external hard disk. It doesn’t exist.
(Last night I turned the PC on to find that the keyboard writes P. PPPPPPPPPPPPPPP. And no, the button’s not stuck.)
Ignoring the implications a ghost-computer (and the concomitant decisions), I moved to writing on the tablet. It has a keyboard and fits neatly in my handbag. Win!
Unfortunately, the keyboard battery has died. It no longer charges. I can still use it, but the keyboard is less responsive and drains the screen battery extra-quick.
I have access to two laptops. One that’s very old, very large and very loud: it’s my backup machine. It’s on it’s second battery, has more RAM than the fan can deal with as well as a clogged hard disk and should be retired.
Laptop number two is whizzier, touch-screen, light and quiet, with hours and hours of battery-life. I’m using that for most of my writing now. There are a couple of issues:
- it’s not actually mine, and therefore
- doesn’t have all of my applications installed.
So. That’s the moan over.
Here’s the point: editing.
The problem with all that is that I’m allowing it to distract me from editing which should be my number one priority.
Solution? Ignore the inanimate objects and get on with it.