The medium is a mess.

[mrissa]

I have a laptop. An hour ago I had no laptop. But now I do, and it is named DUCHATELET, and it is sitting behind me quietly charging its little battery before I bend it to my evil whims.

Problem is, I'm not entirely sure what those evil whims are. See, for most of the last eight years -- since I started freelancing in the middle of 2000 -- one of my major methods of life maintenance has been that when I step away from the computer, I can keep thinking about work, but I can't actually keep working. And it turns out that thinking about work is not at all hard one one's back, and that other things do intervene so that I still go out with friends and play with the dog and like that. But if markgritter and timprov indicate that they would like to hang out and watch a DVD, I have been physically unable to claim that I'm doing this while really working on a story. This seems best all around.

So I don't know. I'm pretty sure I'll use this laptop, or we wouldn't have bought it. I'm just not sure where the boundaries will need to go. Right now I'm not even sure if it'll be a problem; I'm reaching my queasy time from doing one and a third of the things on my revision task list, writing an e-mail, and reading some lj. After this I'll be heading downstairs with a book and not the new laptop. Will I write fiction on the library couch now? In the living room? Will it come out better that way? Will I actually get work done while traveling that isn't a pain in the butt to deal with upon my return, the way longhand writing is?

I don't know. And I'm definitely not giving up on writing things longhand. My paper journal is a shadow of its former self since I've been writing most of my drafts on the computer -- sure, there'll be ponderings and title ideas and snippets like that, but that's a lot less material than several hundred or thousand words of fiction a day, which is what my paper journals saw in their prime. My current one is much smaller than the monstrosities I used to use, and it still seems like a lot to juggle when I'm going out.

But! porphyrin and Mike and the kids tucked a couple of tiny graph-ruled notebooks into my birthday present. Really tiny -- the size of my hand. And I stuck one in my purse, and last week when I was waiting forEVer for the optician to fix my glasses, I pulled one out and started writing a short story in it in big, sloppy handwriting that is both like and unlike my usual handwriting. I mean, you can tell it's me, but you can also tell that it was maybe leaning on my knee in an uncomfortable chair in the optician's office. I started writing it sequentially, and I think I'll try to continue. The story is called "The Curvature of Every Disorder," which is a title I dreamed, and it may fill the entire notebook and still count as a short story. Maybe it'll be a novelette. Maybe I'll finish it and another story will go in there behind it. I don't know. But it is a notebook for being useful in odd moments, for being entertaining in odd moments, and also for shaking up what I think I'm doing with this process stuff, maybe. I have always said that I didn't want to be one of those people who can't get work done unless they have exactly the right pen with exactly the right ink in it on exactly the right paper, or exactly the right tea, or whatever, and yet the vast majority of my fiction composition in the last several years has been right here at this desk. So maybe that's going to change. Or maybe not; it'll be interesting to find out.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

This sounds nifty.

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

I think habits are one of those "lies we tell ourselves" to get things done. On the other hand shaking up the norm can lead to new possibilities. Neutral on this one.

[cammykitty.livejournal.com]

Congrats on your new computer friend. I think peggy's right. If you really really wanted to write while watching a DVD pre-computer, you would have pulled out a pen and paper. I think you're going to love being able to write at the park or at a coffee shop or while waiting for a freakin' optician without having to figure out what that word was you were writing when the bus hit a pot-hole.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, my two rules regarding creative habits are:
1. Do what works.
2. Try not to limit what works if you can manage it.

So if you can do whatever you're doing (fiction, music, painting, whatever) best after you've had a cup of lemon tea, no reason not to have a cup of lemon tea most of the time -- as long as you don't create a situation where breaking your favorite teacup means you don't get anything creative done for months.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If you really really wanted to write while watching a DVD pre-computer, you would have pulled out a pen and paper.

Heh. And in fact, I did. But there's a higher activation potential barrier there: if I want to write enough to use pen and paper and then take the time to transfer it to computer, that's more wanting to write than having the ability to put it directly into the computer. (Discounting stories that I just can't write any way but longhand, of course.)

[elsmi.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I can't comment usefully on the process things, because I am the sort of person who got a small laptop so that it can live on their back unnoticed *always*. But your entry induced me to google DUCHATELET and I wanted to say that the results were most pleasant.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

She is one of my favorite historical figures of all time. With Aud the Deep-Minded.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Hopefully just being able to write in different positions will enable you physically to write for longer, when you want to. (I'm guessing that was the point.)

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

Tis a good plan. Mine is simalar.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. No. I mean yes, ideally, when the limiting factor is my back. But with the vertigo, I spent last evening once again demonstrating how sick I can make myself by staying at the computer for a couple of hours. Wheee.

(I was installing an SSH client and Firefox and OpenOffice, and I wanted to see when each step was done so I could go on to the next.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Now I have had to google Aud the Deep-Minded. See, I'm not idling at all, I'm learning...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

When I bought the Laptop of Heavenly Perfection, the point of it was really to prove to myself - by means of a beautiful expensive toy that I would just have to justify by using - that I could indeed write elsewhere than at this desk.

And, yup. I can write in libraries and in coffee-shops, in friends' houses and on trains. Ooh, cool! Where else can I go...?

*travels*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And I'm not goofing off, I'm teaching people important historical facts! What a great thing the internet is.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

i used to sit in South Park Cafe for an hour at lunch, writing fiction in my little notebook. the longer i wrote, the better my handwriting got, sometimes. i would get irritated when the food would come too fast.

in high school and college i wrote many, many, many pages of fiction, longhand.

i still consider it the best, most canonical way to write. but then i never do it anymore.