Yes, my new writing tool arrived. It's got Windows 7 and a 15" screen. It feels lighter, but it's wider, more blade-like, than Old Clunky. I didn't plan to get a new laptop until after I sold my first novel. I didn't feel it would be right to spend my own money, rather than my "writing money", on a tool for writing.
But my old laptop's battery was dying--it wouldn't last 45 minutes on a single charge, which is the minimum time I need it to last for because thats' the expanse of time I write at lunch. When that happened, I could no longer write on my comfy couch. I had to find an empty cubicle and stoop down to plug it in... each time. I didn't think about ordering a new battery because my laptop is super old, and finding an old battery would (might) be just as expensive as a new laptop. Plus the thing would churn awful if I was doing stuff with two browsers open. Today's web uses some CPU intensive stuff, so the old girl was not cutting it anymore.
I'm also using OpenOffice.org for my word processor instead of Word 2003. I had tried using it when I first got my laptop, but it was too slow, so I installed my old version of Word 2000 (the one that doesn't have limited installs on it). Then I had the opportunity to install a version of Word 2003, which I like for the sole reason that you can hide the whitespace in headers and footers in page layout format. The only other way to do that is web format so that it's on the left. I also hope my macros work.
But anyway, whenever you get a new laptop, you have to do something with the old one. Right now we've got two obsolete laptops in the house, my wife's old one that I don't think works satisfactorily anymore (phantom keystrokes, 0 battery, bad power port), and mine, which still works, but has dwindling battery and is old. Maybe when I get famous, I can sell it on auction--the laptop that Black Hole Son and part of Merm-8 was written on.
Speaking of Black Hole Son, I really need to step up my query sendings. My list of unqueried agents is getting steadily lower, and we're getting to people who weren't my top choices (not that they're my bottom choices, they're more in the middle). But the point is, my query is satisfying enough that I can send to more than 4-5 people at a time. And once that's done, I can send my better query to the people from before. In other words, Black Hole Son is doing no good waiting at these inboxes.
In fact, I've been slacking off on everything lately--reading, writing, blog entries, critiques, staying on my diet. The only thing that's consistently productive is the 45 minutes I write each day (and that's if I don't have a meeting or something). And that feels like more arduous work these days (maybe because of the scenes I'm writing). I've been watching too many stupid movies online, wasting time and getting media overload. I need to get back to my basics--writing and reading. If I don't do those things, I'll never be a writer.Labels: Black Hole Son, computers, Word Processors