Back in the Groove

It’s taken a lot of work, and way too long, but I’m finally starting to feel like I’m back in the writing groove.

I may not have written every day last week, but I wrote more days than not. And it wasn’t just blog posts and journal entries, it was real writing. To be honest, it had been so long since I’d written anything really new I was beginning to wonder if I even could.

The only problem is, with the summer weather and all it’s becoming more difficult to sit in my favourite chair to write. Don’t laugh! You try sitting in a recliner with a lap top on your lap. Even when I’ve got the lap desk between me and the lap top that sucker generates a lot of heat.

Enter the Alphasmart Neo.

The first year I did NaNoWriMo I lusted after an Alphasmart Neo, basically an electronic keyboard that lets you write distraction free. The Alphasmart has no games, no internet, no bells and whistles. You use it to write on, and that’s it. It’s distraction free and holds up to eight documents at a time. When you’re done you simply plug it into your computer and sit back and watch it type in a brand new document file. It runs off of AA batteries, which last about a year with heavy usage. And the best part of all? It doesn’t generate any heat.

Unfortunately, they stopped making them in 2013. I got mine off of Ebay for $50.00 and I’d say it’s the best present I ever bought myself. It’s lightweight and durable and makes me type faster. Seriously! My typing speed just about doubles on it.

Now earlier in the week I saw an internet advertisement for a Hemingwrite, which pretty much the same idea only it has a few more bells and whistles - like mechanical switches to navigate folders, a status display that will give you your word count or the amount of time you’ve been writing, and access to WiFi so you can upload your work to the Cloud or Dropbox or whatever. However, it’s battery only lasts three to four weeks and its cost is $500.00.

I’ll take my little Neo over the Hemingwrite any day!

Wordage Report

Blog Posts (not counting this one)
4,531 words total
Even before I added in the extra blog post I did I had last week’s score beaten. And no wonder, I was up late at least a couple of nights getting posts written so they could be scheduled. Of course spending more time on blog posts meant my other writing suffered, but you can’t have everything.

New Ideas
0 words total
Not a one. And the one that’s been running around in my head like a chicken with its head cut off has kind of fizzled out, so obviously it wasn’t meant to be written down.

Editing
16 pages total
Progress on An Elemental Earth has slowed a little because I’m getting into the part that needs some heavy editing. One of my characters is coo-coo-bananas and I don’t think that showed up very well in the original.

New Words
734 total
And these words were all on my new story Dreamer this time. I think it’s going to be more of a flash fiction than short story, but who knows, maybe I can add to it during the editing stage.

Now, as you might have noticed, the progress bar for Wandering Wizards gave an almighty jump. As I had to keep reminding myself, while it seemed more like editing than writing, it really wasn’t. All I was supposed to be doing was deleting the stuff that conflicted with what was going on in Lucky Dog I wasn’t really editing, and that made things go much faster. I wish I’d recorded somewhere the number of words it was when I started messing with it, so I’d know if I increased or decreased the total words, but alas, I didn’t

Once again, here’s an excerpt from Wandering Wizards:

“You kind of look like her you know.”
“Who?”
“Aracelia. Something in the facial features, especially around the eyes.”
“I really enjoyed the time I spent with her,” Jessica said wistfully. “I wish I’d known then that she was my grandmother.”
“If it’s any consolation, she came very close to spilling the beans many times. But she swore an oath to Paranithel before he arranged for her to meet you, and he in turn swore an oath to Thackery.”
Jessica was silent for so long that Ellen was forced to ask, “What are you thinking? Are you still planning on going south to meet Thackery and Paranithel? Aracelia has offered to send you back to our world herself, if that’s what you want.”
Smiling slightly, Jessica shook her head. “No, I’m going to see this through. No matter what. I may not agree with their methods, but it’s obvious those two down south care about me. I find I really want to meet them, to find out about where I come from.”
“And to learn about your mother,” Ellen added softly.
“That too. Plus there’s the whole magic thing . . .”
“How cool is that?” Ellen asked with a grin. “You and Howard both.”
“Sometimes it’s very, very cool,” Jessica admitted. “But sometimes it’s pretty damn scary. What about you? Any magical powers for you popping up?”
“No! And I’m quite happy to keep it that way. I’ll stick to being Aragorn and you and Howard can duke it out to see who’s Gandalf.”
They shared a laugh.
“Now all we need is a Gimli and a couple of hobbits,” Jessica said. At Ellen’s confused look she added, “Well, we’ve already got a Legolas . . .”
At Ellen’s blush she began to chortle.