Tools in my toolbox

A few weeks ago, a new laptop entered my life. And, right on time, my faithful desktop computer died. My local computer guru might be able to resurrect it, but for right now I am learning the laptop.

On the plus side, I can write almost anywhere: in the Lazy Boy chair, in bed, at the dining room table, on the couch, even in the stands during Little League games. (Only when DS2 is in the dug-out)

On the down side, it's smaller and touchier than my desk top. I'm using some new software, too, which is another change.

I used to write in long hand on legal tablets. I think the Great American Western Novel fills a ton of those in one of those boxes in the basement. (We've only been in this house for 20 years and I've got some other things to do first.)

Sometimes I'd use my trusty electric typewriter to put my long hand notes in a more readable form, but once the draft was typed, it seemed written in stone to my mind. I wonder if anyone else felt that way about a typed draft.

My first computer booted up with big floppy disks, and had a tiny screen like a port-hole with little green letters floating by. It was compatible with a dot-matrix printer.

As personal computers became more affordable, we invested (because it cost as much as a couple head of cattle) in a laptop computer. We putted out onto the Information Superhighway at the speed of a golf cart, but eventually made it.

With the ease of writing and editing on screen, my productivity soared once I switched to using a PC. Strangely enough, though, I found no takers for a 400,000-word contemporary romance novel.

Now these two tools seem irreplaceable -- both a computer and the internet. Recently when plot ideas came to me when I could not find pen and paper, I jotted them down as a draft of a text message.

I would love to hear about others' work styles and spaces. Does anyone still write in long hand first? Or e-mail ideas to themselves? I'll check back after work tomorrow. Have a great weekend, everybody!