A day....

That's lasting far into the night. Writing has been more sparse of late because finding time (yes I know, I very much have needed to make the time and I haven't been) and opportunity in the same moment has developed into absurd levels. I have a lap top. It's about twenty pounds of outdated Pentium three technology with a cracked case and a disturbing tendency to shed plastic bits from the hinge whenever opened. This is what I do the majority of my writing on as it is semi portable (if there is a power source) and has MS word. I haul this beast over to the children's house where I have been sitting along with a padded lap desk so that I don't burn my thighs in extended sitting sessions. I live in terror that the not quite two year old will someday grab the screen and wrench it into a pile of steaming plastic goo, leaving me to try and rewrite several years worth of novel excerpts and manuscript pages. Yesterday I changed this.

I bought a netbook. It is tiny and dark blue and marvelous. I bought the EEE 10.2 inch model (using all of my sitting money but it is wonderfully worth it.) The keyboard is very nearly full size, I can type with ease. It has wireless intertubes, an itty bitty screen and just enough memory to run MS office and save a few documents. I'm in love. It's so tiny and light! I can run with out plugging it in for at least 3 hours (nearer to four) and it's tiny enough to fit in my purse. I've already transferred my novels. They might be on hold while I start composing odes to the greatness of this miniaturized machine. Or I could just make my word counts.

Housekeeping

Things are rather hectic in the house of Beucler. I am in the processes of finishing out my job in one city, moving to another, unpacking a house, and planning a wedding. If the blog entries are a little light at the moment and the word count is a little low, that is why.

Today's brief wandering is on the written word is an ode to the word processor. I use Word personally but I think these tricks should apply to most systems.

When I am writing at a good clip things will happen to trip me up. "What was the name of Suzy's third uncle? Which book did she read in chapter 7?" The analytical part of me wants to go check. This is death to the flow of words. By the time I check my fact and come back I've lost momentum and I have to work to get back to the scene. My solutions is to type in "xxname" or something to that effect and keep writing.

Say you are writing about Larry's journey into the woods of wonder and realize if I gave him a sword back in chapter 6 when he talks to Wizard Walter it will solve the plot problem with the giant rutabaga that's coming up. Don't stop! Type a note to yourself (I use red colored font) in the story and keep going. If you run out of words go back... but I try not to insert scenes while I am doing the first draft. In point of fact I try not to even read what I wrote before. This works for me because I outline the novel at the start and I write directly into the outline so I always know what needs to come next.

To avoid the temptation of either editing what I've already written (and thus not moving forward) I turn all of the parts I've already written into 1 pt font. Or I open a new window and write the chapter there then paste it back in the master copy. Editing for me is deadly in the first draft. I keep fixing things and making this line better and correcting that detail... and nothing moves forward.

For me it all seems to boil down to momentum.