Technology – Love It and Hate It

Blog by Kate Wyland

Our internet was out for over two days this week. Some vandals decided to attack the phone system for our area, and although we didn’t lose phone service like many others, we did lose our DSL. My husband and I were so totally frustrated. Couldn’t get on to check and respond to email, except by smartphone, which isn’t the most convenient way. Couldn’t keep up with Facebook and Twitter, couldn’t schedule my blog or respond to comments. Couldn’t check the news, do research or check the spelling of a word the easy online way. Couldn’t send out the last two entries I was judging for a writing contest. We were totally lost. Finally we drove 30 minutes away to another town to get access.

For someone who grew up long before the internet, cell phones and GPS, it was amazing to be hit again with how dependent we are on our modern technology. When we tried to actually talk to a real live person at the phone company to get more info than the canned “The internet difficulties will be fixed in 24-48 hours” message, they wanted our account information. Since I use auto-pay online, I didn’t even have a recent copy of the phone bill and couldn’t give them that number. Scream and pull the hair! Eventually we did get a human being, but got the same canned response. It took three days to get our DSL service back.

This experience reminds me of an incident that happened with our first computer—pre-Apple and PC days. We had a MSAI-8080 made from a kit, which had a whole 16K of RAM and two 8” floppy disk drives that held a total of 128K of data. We also had a hand-assembled Heathkit monitor and an old telex machine for printing. Talk about a dinosaur! But it had something quite new at the time—word processing software. Wordstar, the grandmother of them all.

I soon grew enamored of a system that allowed me to correct mistakes easily and even move text without re-typing everything. Then one morning I couldn’t get to my file. It had disappeared. Frantically, I tried everything in my limited repertoire, but no luck. I was devastated. All my work was gone. I’d only been using the computer for about a month and I couldn’t believe how dependent I’d become on it. The thought of going back to the typewriter was totally unacceptable.

Despondent, I turned the computer off and went on with my day. That evening, when my husband came home, he flipped it on and wonder of wonders my file was back! (I’ve since learned that turning the computer off and on can solve a multitude of problems.) From that day to this, computers have become a bigger and bigger part of my life. I literally don’t know how I’d function without one.

If all your electronic gizmos stopped working, which would you miss the most? Computer, cell phone, e-reader, mp3 player or something else? What can’t you live without? Or would it matter to you at all? Several friends and family are virtually electronics-free, except for TVs. I’m sure the fiber optic sabotage didn’t bother them at all.

*************************************************************************

Learn more about Kate Wyland:
Website: http://katewyland.com/
Blog: http://katewyland.com/blog

Checkout her book:

Wyoming Escape

Two dead bodies. One dirty cop. Is she next?

Also her short story:

Images – A Love Story
She’s learned to hide from life.
Should she hide from him?

It is Worth It!

This post by Jennifer Flaten

When both girls got roles in the school musical, they were excited. My more reserved daughter had a lead role and my other daughter, who started out having just one speaking part (five lines), was picked for the chorus, so now she would appear in every single scene, which necessitated a total of four different costumes in addition to her “kingly” costume for her speaking part.

Prior to casting the play, the drama club only meet once a week, but after the roles were assigned the rehearsals started. At first, the girls found them fun and exciting, but as rehearsals dragged, it went from fun to work.

wm-license-information-description-missing wm-license-information-description-missing-request MTLogo2.png (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The girls met for an hour after school every single day of the week, except Fridays; unless the directors thought, they needed more practice-which as opening night approached they did.

They couldn’t even escape the musical during chorus practice, because they practiced the songs from the musical there too.

During this time, they girls had to pick out their electives for 7th grade and as we discussed electives we talked about what clubs they would both join next year. Now into month two of rehearsal for the play, when I asked the girls if they were planning on joining drama in 7th grade both of them claimed they had zero interest in joining drama next year. Too much work they said.

I told them that they might feel different after they actually performed the play for an audience. Basically, both girls said “Meh” to that statement. After all, what did I know?

Guess who was right? Me (yes, mom scores one). After performing the play five times, four times for fellow students and one for the community, the girls can’t wait to join drama next year.

Finally, hearing the audiences’ laughter after a funny line, getting applause after their scene, not to mention the thunderous applause for the entire cast at the end of the show, they had tangible proof that all their hard work was worth it.

Of course, because they are cool Tweens, they will have to see what the play is next year before fully committing to joining the club again, but I would put money on them joining next year.

Don’t you think this applies to writing? All that hard work creating the characters, editing, fixing the plot holes, it can seem endless, thankless even. Maybe, you think, I don’t ever want to do this again.

Then, someone reads our work and likes it; they really, really like it. Suddenly, you can’t wait to write another story.

Follow me on Facebook
Check out my website Dragon and Butterfly Design
Visit my Etsy shop

Where Does the Time Go!?

This Post by Gayle M. Irwin

About 10 days ago many of us changed our clocks, moving ahead one hour for Daylight Savings Time. Does moving the hands of time on our clocks really save time? Rarely do I adjust to the time change very well – it takes weeks for my self-clock to adjust.

My birthday is just around the corner, and it seems the older I get, the more quickly time passes. That’s especially true with my days off from the “9-to-5” job. I’m fortunate to work just part-time away from home, yet my four days away from the office speed by like NASCAR vehicles on the track.

I’ve taken on several writing projects in the past few months, creating newsletters, brochures, press releases and advertisements for other organizations. Add this to my time working at the clinic, and writing articles for the community magazine, and I’m spending more than 40 hours each week working for others, even though much of that work is writing. The additional money comes in handy, but my own writing projects suffer from neglect. Because, of course, there is also time spent cooking, taking care of my pets, and cleaning house (well, actually, not much time cleaning house these days!). Time slips away like water through a drain. Is there enough time to write for others, earning money, and for my personal writing projects?

Time management is a trait many employers desire; it’s a trait I believe I used to possess. Afterall, I was the editor of a small town paper with only one additional employee, and yet faithfully we interviewed people, wrote stories, took photos, gathered and created ads, set the layout of pages, printed and distributed the paper, and took phone calls and met with clients and readers. Granted, we worked nearly 75 hours a week and, at that time, I was 20 years younger, so I still had energy to take care of my home and spend time with friends.

As writers, we need to manage our time. We may also need to turn down a project that pays in order to not let our own writing lapse. Or, we may choose to forgo our own endeavors in order to make ends meet during a tough economic season in our home life. Or, we may choose to arise an hour earlier, or stay up an hour later, so as to not neglect our own writing while working for others. It’s a personal choice, but sometimes choices need to be made. We also need balance, juggling family, friends, home, work, writing… We also need to rest; we need “downtime”. We need to listen to our own clocks and discover, if we don’t already know, when our best creative time is and how long we can endure pushing ourselves. For example, I am best between 5:30 am and 12:30 pm.; afternoons are not my most creative. Therefore, I try to rise at 5:15, get coffee and meditate, then start my day at 5:30 when my household is quiet. I have discovered I can push myself to work, write, think, develop, etc. until 6 pm, but then I get aggravated more easily and patience evaporates more quickly. So, I’ve learned to shut down no later than 6, and I try to shut down by 4, especially if I’ve been going since 5’ish in the morning. One needs to learn one’s own clock, respect it, and shut it down when the batteries run low… and before someone gets hurt!

When do you find the best time to write? How do you juggle your writing duties with your other responsibilities? Have you come to learn more about yourself and your ability to time manage and multi-task?

My larger, time-zapping projects come to a close later this month; I plan to spend Easter weekend at a friend’s ranch basking in the serenity, the river humming nearby, no cell phone or Internet. I’ll watch ducks swim, hawks soar, deer graze, and turkeys strut; I may even be fortunate to see a pair of sandhill cranes return to the ranch to nest and raise young. I will be revived by the sights and sounds of my friend’s property, a place I visit a few times a year to be rejuvenated… and to still my own busyness in order to write my own work. It’s here that I edited Walking in Trust… and rewrote the final chapter after Sage’s passing. I’m blessed to have a fine friend who opens her guest house to me for such times I need them, especially as I await the snowmelt from my own sanctuary 8,000 feet above sea level. I’m thankful for these places to which I can retreat and where time doesn’t feel so much my enemy.

I have the same 24-hours as every other human being. Perhaps I just need to re-learn time management… or accept the fact time does pass more quickly after 50.

 

A Free Ebook on Time Management for Writers is available here:

http://www.thursdaybram.com/free-ebook-time-management-for-writers

Gayle M. Irwin is the author of Walking in Trust: Lessons Learned with My Blind Dog and other books about her dogs, including stories for children. Learn more about her writing and speaking at www.gaylemirwin.com.

 

 

A LABOR OF LOVE

NOTE: I’ve been struggling with my blog this week. This morning, I got up, turned on  lamp, bulb blew out. Went to computer, started my blog, everything going smoothly, then PING my computer, which was evidently going through Window updates, shut off – Yep, I lost what I’d written on my blog. Moral of the story: Go with the flow, so here goes.

Okay, I’m in clinch mode. CHASING JOE is all but done. I love the story, the characters, and I’m ready to go forward with publishing. EXCEPT, I must read through manuscript one last time to check for story comprehension, dialogue, plot, research material, and cleaning up those silly errors. In other words, I am in writing transition: the point where I have to push this “baby” out of the birth canal and let it breathe on its own. Scary. Do you guys feel this way, too?

My biggest “fear” is getting everything published, and then finding nasty little errors that pop up like pimples before a big date. Even though I’m long past the pimple stage of my life, I do wake up in the morning with an aching jaw from clinching my teeth all night. Of course, I do know what I have to do to make myself feel better: Finish the book and get this bugger off my desk.

I guess what I need from all my writer friends this morning, is a hefty kick in the butt to get myself into action and finish this up. Whew. I feel better already.