What You Can Get Done When Your Power Cord Fries

Replace the image of a laptop with a typewriter and that's what I did...

Ah, what a trying week this has been in regards to writing.  Not impossible, but trying.   This last weekend my power cord to my laptop decided to fry, and because my laptop is old, the battery is as well, so basically, I  couldn’t turn on my laptop for oh, five days.  I can honestly say it drove me nuts.  Instead, I had to borrow my father’s laptop for emailing and some blogging.  I decided to forgo writing because some of what I was working on  I didn’t dare save on his computer.  It’s just too personal.

So, I got back to basics.  I pulled out the Royal.  Ah, the beauty of mechanical machines.  It was actually a blessing in disguise to have the laptop non functional.  I was actually able to finish something.  Yes!  I finished an adult short story I had been working on and had started a couple of weeks ago.  I was thrilled.  Not having the distraction of emails, Twitter, Tumblr, IMDB……, and any other useless media outlets, I was able to concentrate on writing.

I felt quite happy with myself for finally finishing something.  I really need to do it more often.  I might find that things get done if I take out all the distractions.  And trust me, I am easily distracted.  It’s hard to not be when there are so many ways to be online.  This is where typewriters and word processors are nice.  All you can do is type. 

Now, I do miss the online thesaurus, and various researching sites, and spell check.  I do miss spell check, oh and back spacing.  Impossible on the Royal.  Course, I actually have to think for myself when I type.  Which isn’t a bad thing.  Plus, typing on the Royal, I find myself writing a different way.  Maybe a bit less flowery.  I’m not sure.  It just seems more matter of fact.

Well, whatever the results, I’m happy I finished a story.  I sent it off to one of my editors this morning and I can’t wait to hear back from him.  I haven’t finished a lot lately, so this is wonderful.

I have also managed to start another children’s story which is part of a series of picture books I’m working on about a wire-haired dachshund.  This is one of the many I have started, either on paper or in my head.  I’ll need to work some more on it, but I’ve got the start.

Lastly, I made serious improvement with The Letter.  If you are a regular reader, you know I mean the query letter.  It’s almost perfected.  I just need to take out the two ‘and I’ ‘s out of one of the sentences.  It just doesn’t sound right. 

So, the things I accomplished this week because my power cord fried.  I’m kind of happy, plus now I have a new cord that won’t be frying anytime soon.

Oh, and I’ve met another writer that just purchased a Royal DeLuxe.  Isn’t that great?  I’ve had a pretty exciting week.  Let’s hope the high keeps going.

Writing on

~K.L.B.