Thursday at a glance

[rolanni]

Installment ONE:  So, I got up, had breakfast, carried my tea to Steve's office, and was at work by 9:15. Surfaced at 11:55 to go down to do my duty to the cats and take a walk. Now need to figure out if I'm going to order in or just zap a Lean Cuisine.

I need to do a couple things in the business office, from which location I write to you. Those include finishing making a list for my PCP visit tomorrow, researching where the new office actually is, and downloading the Word Book from this computer to take back to the writing computer, which had redlined every other word in the manuscript because it hasn't been brought up to date.

Firefly kept me company in the writing room all morning, and Rookie popped in and out. He was clearly a little concerned about me sitting in Steve's chair -- was I actually allowed to do that? Apparently, he went off and checked the paperwork, because he has clearly accepted that, yes, I can do that.

Hope everybody's having a good day. It's lovely and sunny here, warm, but not hot.

Installment TWO:  Everyone who asked after the keyboard. It is a Kinesis Advantage2 keyboard. I've been using them for at least 20 years; started when my wrists went bad and I bullheadedly refused to give up typing, because speech recognition did not work for me at all. This is what happens when what you actually do instead of pronouncing words correctly is fake people into thinking you talk good by a combination of inflection and body language, neither of which translates into computer programs.

The Kinesis Advantage2 helps because your wrists are in a neutral position and your fingers can hang down in a neutral position, rather than being Poised! To! Strike! as is the case with a standard flat keyboard.

Yes, the learning curve was vile. And, also yes, the trade off is that I now can't type on a flat keyboard, so if I'm taking my laptop on a trip, I either have to also take a keyboard almost as big as the laptop, or Accept that I'm going to be reduced to two-fingering it for as long as I'm away.

This is always a difficult choice because typing is my mode of expression of choice, right after interpretive dance.

Installment THREE:  OK, fun game!

First question: Do the Liaden books have any "tropes"? Examples given "grumpy sunshine," "found family," "the chosen one"? (What on earth is "grumpy sunshine" and do people really push the "tropes" in their books?)

Second question: Can you give us a 1 sentence (30 words) quote form one of your books? ("Yes," which is my go-to, is not in this case a Valid Answer.)

In other news, the Lean Cuisine won, because I made the mistake of checking my mail. My plan is to eat, and then go back and write for another couple hours.

Installment FOUR:  OK. I have written to the originators of the Survey which included the Fun Questions.

So far today, I have Scrutinized the chapter-by-chapter, identified holes in the narrative and sketched in a couple of ideas to fill them. I finished writing a scene, for a total of more-or-less 1250 new words, and did more research. At this point, I might as well open my own noodle shop (no, I haven't watched the movie yet; I'm a little leery of spillage, since I'm actively working on this situation for the book). I hoped to write more today, but that's probably not going to happen? Because mail, and also I really ought to wash the dishes so I can find the sink. And see if, one! more! time! I can find LibreOffice's Word Book.

Tomorrow is the much-complained about trip to Bath and the PCP. I suppose I might as well declare a Writer's Day Off at this point, hit the bakery and tour the kitchen store, and plan on getting back to work on Saturday.

It looks like next week, I have, with the exception of Tuesday evening needlework, nothing scheduled, so that's like a whole uninterrupted week of work. Fingers crossed that nothing comes up to force a change of plans.

So, that's it. I feel like I had a very successful test-drive of separating the mundane and the writing work spaces, and I hope this continues to prove out.

Everybody have a good evening; I'll check in as I can.