6:28am
Am sitting in my bed, glaring at my laptop, which looks like this:
Please excuse the flash, I’m also sitting in the dark to avoid waking Husband.
It was so sleek and fast when Husband first set us up together. I could actually type, on a real keyboard, instead of tapping away on my phone (which is how my entire first draft was written, in a mix of Notepad and Google Keep. Reformatting it back into Word was a barrel of laughs. Guess what? Every single apostrophe wasn’t formatted right but wouldn’t register on the Find…Replace function. And yes, I had to go through changing each one separately. Oh the glamour of being a writer!)
I’ve never been very techy. I’m more anti-techy, with sometimes unfortunate effects. Computers that have a stellar performance record take offence at my approach. Husband used to call me over sometimes to show me some cool bit of coding he’d just done, one click and ta-da! Only now I was watching the ta-da factor would be sadly absent and his previously reliable computer would misbehave.
The last computer I had which behaved was a trusty black Dell that lasted me up until C1 was born. We moved 3 weeks later (yes, that was as fun as you might imagine) and Ebony (my trusty Dell) was never the same again. Even the Professional Techy was utterly stumped and ultimately we had to say our farewells. I still miss Ebony! And every computer I’ve tried since gets cranky the minute I approach. Even the shiny powerful one Husband passed on to me when he was retiring it from its working life with him. A couple of weeks with me and we were definitely in Computer Says No land again.
Back to my shiny new Surface Pro: one light click, and what seemed like moments later I was in Word typing away. This is important for Writerly Self. Like right now, often my writing times are stolen minutes in between mum stuff. If I wake before 7, I can squeeze in a good session before the kids begin to pour in.
Not so today. Laptop is finally behaving, with up to 15 mins left of Potential Writing Time. Husband is snoozing at my side. When I’m not insanely jealous of his ability to sleep through most stuff, I find it very convenient. The last thing my near-constant Mum Guilt needs is a dollop of Wife Guilt on top. But fortunately the tap-tap of the keyboard, which would utterly destroy my own attempts at sleep, doesn’t register on Husband Sleep Radar.
It’s definitely time to return to Word and edit like mad before a child appears and Writerly Self is once more vanquished by Mum Self. Suspicious noises are already drifting from the landing. The patter of tiny feet, which in my house for some reason has always sounded more like the clomp of undersize elephants, is becoming hard to ignore.
But I’m sulking. Laptop and I are supposed to be a team! All I’ve asked from it is the use of Word and Google Chrome. Maybe the problem is I haven’t named it yet. But it’s still early days in my book. To take our relationship to the next level, I’m definitely going to need to see less black-screening. 🤨
It’s 6:52. Word has finally appeared. There’s still time…
Country Mum Writes 