[Writer Post] New Tools, Writing, Etc.
It’s Wednesday. That’s writer post day. The first post on the new computer. I’ve upgraded my primary writing tool. No longer do I have an 8 year old Toshiba Satellite Black Friday Special (thank you, Mom and Dad – that gift back then was a complete God-send). The Toshiba served me well all those years – it’s not dead yet, we’ll keep it around a while to make sure I have everything off it I need.
I’m now on a 16GB Dell Insipirion with a 1TB (TERRABYTE!!!!!) hard drive, touch screen, and an immediate upgrade to Win10 out of the box. We’ve also upgraded to Microsoft 365 – meaning I’m working on getting everything moved to the Cloud (as well as locally saved/backed up – haven’t totally drunk that Kool-Aid yet). And learning the joys of subscription based software, but both Jimmy and I can have the same Office Suite on both PCs and tablets. Documents are pretty easy. We’ll see about email.
What does this have to do with writing? It’s one of the things you do as a writer – keep your tools sharp. I probably waited too long to replace my laptop – but I’m a “use it till the wheels fall off†type person. And this one came up at the right time – and on sale – so the frugal side of me was able to meet Jimmy’s “we need to get you the best we can because it’s your primary writing toolâ€. So go me – bells and whistles!
And what have I been doing? Paper edits/feedback for the ROTA novel. I’m almost done with the second pass. Then I’ll start inputting the notes I made on my sections. Then I can move on to other things – pretty sure I’m going with the YA novel (or novelette) next. Not sure how long it’s going end up being by the time it’s done.
Oh, and I’ve been scanning the Hugo results. I had to see the fall out, even if I’m not participating. Here’s hoping all that is over, but alas… I fear it is not. I shudder to think the damage the whole thing has caused on both sides of the argument, and hope not too many careers were harmed in the cross fire. To all who won – congratulations. For those categories with “No Awardâ€â€¦ I’m sorry.
Now…back to doing what I do best – write stories and hope people like them. Oh, and spending some time doing maintenance on my website. Parts of that are woefully out of date – and being a short story judge for a comic book convention in October (wish me luck).