I don’t know about you, but when I sit at my computer these days, regardless of whether my goal is fiction or business writing, I can’t help but click away and compulsively watch our plummeting financial market. My retirement’s at stake, but what good does it do me to watch it slip like sand through an hourglass?
I have learned to let voice mail record my calls, but the distraction of the internet interferes with my writing in catastrophic ways. I resolve daily I won’t check the fireplace tools I’m watching on eBay. I won’t check for my son’s email messages six times an hour. I’ll discipline myself to read the news twice daily. And I'll wait until 5pm to explore delicious Women of Mystery links.
Which brings me to a solution I’ve contemplated - and I do wonder what you all have to say about it - which is the purchase of an AlphaSmart NEO or its big sister, the Dana. (If I bought the Dana I’d obviously need to forgo the WiFi option, else I’d be back in the same pickle.)
I thought I’d feel lost without my online thesaurus, but both contraptions have got one installed. They can optionally run on three AA batteries. They’re incredibly light. They’re incredibly little...will fit easily in currently-fashionable suitcase-sized handbags. With AlphaSmart’s claims about their indestructibility, I conclude I could safely throw one at my couch-clawing cat. (But will it withstand the frequent coffee spills?)
The company asserts that the small screen is visible outdoors in bright light, an opportunity sadly missing with all the laptops I’ve owned. The ability to transfer my wip to and from MS Word on my PC is essential, and upload and download features are included. Essential, because six lines of text would prove impossible for revisions. Perfect, however, for first drafts. NaNoWriMo, here I come!
Naysayers, please comment before I plunk down my $219.
- Lois
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12 comments:
Yes, yes, a thousand time yes.
Oh, you wanted a naysayer. Sorry.
We've got a Neo. I take it outside to whichever porch calls me and write.
I use the USB cord to transfer as this whole other business it can use to transfer is way beyond me.
You wanted the down side. Good luck with that.
I thought about it, but my "nay" is in that I need a larger view. I tend to read back over as I write in order to keep my flow, and the tiny amount of text available in the screen has always been what kept me away from them. Of course, I've never seen one in use in person, so I don't know whether it would be as bad as I fear.
I'm with Laura - I need a bigger screen to work with. Besides - what fun is it if we can't have distractions from work? ;)
Laura, the small screen has always turned me off too. But the way I write first drafts, I'm not sure it matters so much. I could practically do it with my eyes shut. It would, I think, be a lousy piece of hardware for revision.
Leah...do you use the NEO or the Dana?
And Pretzel...I'm with you, but hte fun's getting a bit old.
It's the Neo. Didn't want any distractions.
It's got a few applets, as they're known, including spell check, word count, and find and replace.
It's cheap to use and does not ask for much in return.
PS The screen size is not an issue. I'm nearly 50 and have had laser eye surgery.
Fonts and sizes can be changed.
Leah you've convinced me. I can always return it if I find I don't like it. I'll keep all you guys posted.
Of course no one is surprised that I never heard of either of these things.
Terrie
Terrie, I'm not sure that you have the same discipline problems. You manage to turn out great stuff grand children and all! Has the new one arrived yet?
Ditto on needing a bigger screen. Same reason as Laura. I don't write outside the house, so portability is not an issue for me.
I bought an old, used PC, cheap, and had it rebuilt, cheap, with just the basics and NO INTERNET modem. This machine is solely dedicated to writing, and is not capable of letting me log on when I get the itch to surf the web when I should stay in writing mode.
Would that work for you?
I had an Alpha Smart version before the current Neo- don't remember what it was called. It was five or more years ago, and I could e-mail the raw text files to MS Word or send Word files back to it as text. It was light and portable and easy enough to use, but because of how I write (referring back and forth to online materials and other rough docs), eventually I found it too limiting and moved to the straight laptop route. If you're a heads-down and write on ahead scribe, it might be that good middle way for you. Let us know how it goes!
what about a cheap laptop but don't hook it up to the internet?
My writing computer is not hooked up to anything but mostly because I'm paranoid that a virus could trash the system and then I'd lose the files
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