Write Back

I’ve had a really packed few weeks, and being able to work off my laptop is an absolute must. My life is on this laptop in one way or another. So when finally the last of the festivals* was done, I was looking forward to spending a fair amount of time alone with my laptop to catch up on some things.

Then my laptop died.

Well, it didn’t exactly die. The battery started to expand, which is as good as dying because that can lead to the battery exploding and fires and big trouble, and you’re not supposed to used them at all once you spot the problem.

I only brought the laptop in July last year – because the previous one (three years old) died when the battery expanded. So thankfully, I could get the battery changed under warranty, so I called the supplier and they agreed to sort out the repair at no charge. So I downloaded all my documents onto a hard drive and took it to the shop. The bad news was that it would be away for a whole week (turned out to be 8 days).

In the meantime, I had to resurrect an old Samsung laptop I have. It’s ten years old, brought when Windows 8 was first released. I haven’t even turned that laptop on in years, so it took two days of updates to get it to do anything, and it turns out that doing anything with images is beyond its capacity. Well, to be honest, that’s not entirely fair, it could do stuff, but so slowly it was painful, definitely beyond the endurance of my patience. Thankfully, though, it was good enough to let me do the last edits on my current WIP, so I am very grateful I hadn’t got rid of the machine. If I hadn’t been able to do that, I would have been totally stressed out by now, instead, I’m feeling good for having sent the manuscripts to my publisher.

Anyway, I now have my lovely ‘new’ laptop back and I can really get on with all I need to do.

So happy to be reunited with my best work tool.

* Gwyl CRIME CYMRU Festival, then Narberth Book Fair, then CrimeFest.

Implements

I’ve noticed something odd today. Firstly, I know it’s been a while, sorry. My time has been taken up doing things for others and I simply haven’t been able to keep up.

The odd thing I noticed today is that I’ve started keeping special pens/pencils for certain things I write down. Usually I just grab the nearest writing implement and use that, but lately I find myself having to go to get the ‘right’ pen. As you can see in the picture, these aren’t particularly special pens.

There’s a standard hp pencil and a blue biro. These I use for tarot readings (I’m learning them for a character I’m working on). The two multicoloured pencils I use for when I’m working on “Save The Cat! Writes A Novel”, I like to use different colours for different types of notes. The black one at the bottom is the one I’ve started using for drafting one of the books I’m working on. Stuart Feild gave this to me at CrimeFest a week ago. It’s just a really nice writer.

What isn’t a nice writer right now, is this laptop. The usual laptop I use is a HP, but early this week I discovered that the battery was expanding, which is extremely dangerous. So that laptop (only 10 months old) has gone for warranty repairs. This means that I am now working on an old Samsung laptop. When I say old – it’s running Windows 8 and I remember I brought it when Windows 8 was first out, so it’s at least 10 years old. It works, but it is so incredibly slow! I’ll have typed to the end of the sentence and then have to stop to wait for the words to show up on screen. Very frustrating. Still, I have something to work with and for that I am grateful. But right now, I’m going back to pencil and paper; it’s less frustrating.

Arrangements

With the curtains up in the conservatory, and my back playing up, I’ve been working back down in the conservatory.  It’s been much better, I get the support of a decent desk and deskchair, and with the curtains taking the edge of the direct sunlight, it’s workable.  What this means is that I don’t finish work with either a headache from too much sun or a backache from sitting on a sofabed all day. 

I knew it would take a while to get things set up as I wanted.

The console table I had trouble with is now behind the sofa, holding my personal laptop (I’m working off the works laptop in the day). This now means that I have a working area that I can walk away from at the end of the day and then I’ve got somewhere safer for my personal laptop, instead of slipping it under the sofa.

It also means that the boxes of my books that have been behind the sofa have now been tidied up and put under the consol.  This means they are away from the radiator – not that warmth has been an issue. And that we have easier access to the CD rack and the bottom of the bookcase that end of the room. 

Still have to place my laptop over the scratch though!

But it’s working out, I’m getting comfortable, and that matters.