Situation update: hampered by logistics but still endeavoring to create.
Writing “Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels” is a hell of a lot of work. Here’s a peek at how the sausage is made: Much of my verbiage starts with pen and paper. Other parts begin on my beloved Neo (the bit shovel). The rest is hammered straight into my laptop. That’s followed by a merging process and then endless edits where I change and rearrange every damn word (often three or more times).
The end result is a complex document that was digested through whatever word processors I’ve used and is now properly organized in word processing software called Scrivener. From there it’s backed up in 378,267 locations or I can’t sleep at night.
Scrivener has a bitch of a learning curve and doesn’t like running on Linux but those are my only complaints. It’s probably the best thing for long documents. Word seems to shit itself when documents get too long. Microsoft never seemed to manage subdocuments well. Oh WordPerfect… how I mourn your loss. (Also, one of the worst things about writing big stuff is bad advice about word processors from people who’ve never done it. The world is filled with folks who’ve formatted a three page memo and think this will scale up to a thousand page novel.)
Scrivener isn’t the end. From there I compile the beast into the 300+ page unfinished novel which it is, print it, write all over the fresh printouts, edit more, waste a mountain of paper, and then… more edits. Finally, when all that’s done (or at least done enough that I’ve hit the wall on tweaking it), I slice and dice bits and pieces to cut and paste into WordPress for blog posts.
I’m sure there are more efficient writing methods. My approach sure seems convoluted. But it’s the only method with which I’ve been able to reliably extract the quality I want from the brain I have.
The problem is that my laptop has slowly gotten older and creakier with time. (Like me.) Unlike me, it’s damn near slowed to a halt. It’s frustrating to use. That’s my fault for not upgrading sooner. I knew it was necessary almost two years ago. I dragged my feet with all purchases during the year of spastic fuckery we call 2020. If there ever was a time to let a laptop slide… we just saw it.
Recently, I pulled the trigger on a brand new computer. I about died from analysis paralysis picking it out. Then, it took forever to arrive. That said I was pleased as punch with the mini-pc form factor. I put it up on my sidebar as an Amazon link; on the off chance that anyone wants to buy their own. Supposedly it’s a computational bad ass. All I know is my old laptop is gasping for breath and begging to be put out of its misery. I half expect it to croak before I finish this post.
Sadly, the snazzy new computer arrived in a manner that was… fucked. I could describe the problem in a more technical manner but fucked covers the situation just fine. I made some calls and Amazon is sorting out a return. Supposedly, the cretins that shipped me an electronic disappointment are trying to “fix it”. In 2021, “fix it” means I wait double the lengthy delay for delivery, waste a bunch of my own time trying to suss out the shitpile they initially sent, in the end Amazon/Seller get every penny initially agreed upon, and then they pat themselves on the back for having succeeded on the second try. Good thing they don’t sell parachutes.
It is what it is. Thirty years ago I bought a 486DX from Gateway for a different but equally important project. The service, delivery, and quality was orders of magnitude superior to the psychological beating I’m taking on this computer. Remember this kids: the arrow of history does not simply point one way. We’re all living through the “adapting to a declining society” situations that we saw approaching on the horizon half a lifetime ago.
The Amazon link remains on my sidebar. I think, after this bad start, I’ll still be pleased with my choice. YMMV. I just wanted y’all to know that there have been “issues”. Anything I link to or recommend on my blog is something I’ve personally experienced and approved. Should this all work out, I’ll give a head’s up… sometime in the future. When the mini-pc has been tested and Curmudgeon approved. If it all goes to shit, not only mini-pc link to Amazon but all links to Amazon will disappear from my blog forever. They get one chance to fix this. I suspect they will, but only time will tell.
The standard caveats apply; this product was only driven by a little old lady to church on Sundays, it’s gluten free but causes peanut allergies, and is known to the State of California to cause cancer.