Wednesday, February 22, 2017

OLDER THAN DOS

   Actually, I'm a lot older than that, but I feel like an old 8088 computer sometimes, trying to keep up with the new technology. I understood DOS, and I could write programs in Basic, Fortran, and Cobol. Those all fell by the wayside long ago along with my ability to understand modern computer programming.
   The speed at which I write is on a par with that old computer. It doesn't take much to cause a 'blue screen', and everything come to a grinding halt. After Christmas, I started averaging several thousand words a day and felt I could finish my story by the end of January. Then I got sick. Zero words were written as I struggled to breathe for several weeks, and of course I missed my goal.
   Tried my reset button, but the auto-depression.exe virus initiated, dumping my memory. CTRL-ALT-DELETE isn't helping, and the old cpu is randomly running short misc. scenes trying to find the right program. I still have the ending in mind, but the path to get there is no longer clear.
   Unfortunately, I can't upgrade the cpu and add memory like I used to for the old system. Between a corrupted program, fragmented files, low memory, and an ancient printer, story production is minimal. I wish I was referring to my computer, but I'm not. I'm no longer the sharpest tool in the shed. As a matter of fact, the shed isn't in very good shape anymore either.
   As long as they continue to put notebooks on sale for 20c each, and charitable organizations keep sending me free pens, I'll keep writing something. Maybe I'll even finish this story someday.
   Sorry you've been subjected to my rotten mood, but this is the least whinny of the blog posts I've tried to write today.

2 comments:

  1. That is cute. I'm right there with you on this topic.

    I'm glad your feeling better and can breath now. This has been a serious season of colds and Flu. When one gets sick enough, nothing else matters much - everything goes to a back burner or completely out of mind.

    I know that you will stitch together your scenes and bridge the gap between where you are in your story and the end you have in mind. I know the feeling. I wrapped up what I thought was a clever melding of characters at the end of Chapter 15 and I've spent the last three weeks just thinking about where to go from there and how I wanted to move Ernest along. I broke the log jam yesterday and got in a 800 word start on it.

    Write on, Shipmate.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jerry. It's nice that someone has confidence in me when I have none in myself.

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