Friday, August 15, 2008

I killed a keyboard

I've killed a second keyboard. I killed one with Blackbringer, and now again with Silksinger and Lips Touch. Well, actually, this one isn't dead, it's just shabby. The last one truly died and stopped spacing, etc. This one just looks like someone with claws has been typing on it. There's a weird satisfaction in offing a keyboard. It means I've been typing a lot. I used to get the same strange satisfaction from an empty tube of oil paint. It meant that I'd squoze out all that paint and done something with it! It's the same here -- I squoze out this keyboard's allotment of words, and I need a new one! Yay! (Especially 'yay' since it was under warranty -- that was never true of paint tubes, and oil paint is expensive!)

I hate being parted with my computer while it is in Mac surgery. Hate it. Even though I have this old computer I am on now. I actually killed this keyboard once too, but I didn't write it to death, I only spilled water on it. There's no glory in that!

So, I shall start my new book with a fresh keyboard. A new writing program too, I think. I'm going to try Scrivener. I keep hearing such good things about it, and I need all the help I can get. I've written the last three books on bare-bones Appleworks out of loathing for Word -- but I always have to translate the manuscripts into Word before sending them off to my editor. I hate Word. Can't understand why it is the program. Bleh.

Speaking of 'bleh,' we're having a heat wave. Yesterday it was 102 in Portland. Guh. Today will be the same, but worse -- because the night didn't cool off as much as usual so there wasn't a whole lot of fresh morning air to start with. Wish we could take off for the coast for a few days, but a certain husband has too many assignments. Pthwt. Blessings, at least, for our one air-conditioning unit -- it keeps the studio decent. It was a hand-me-down from a friend of ours who left Portland for Los Angeles to do movie CG stuff, and has since moved on to Croatia where he has fallen in love. Isn't that lovely? An appliance with a history. My writing room, however, does not have a hand-me-down air-conditioner, history or not. I hope it doesn't get too unbearable today. Sigh. Wish we were at the beach.

17 comments:

Deirdre said...

Your weather is even hotter than ours! I don't feel so bad now. At least we cool off at night, all the way down to the upper 50's. Love it.

I haven't written a keyboard to death yet, but I do love wringing every drop of ink out of a pen.

Disco Mermaids said...

Judging by the letters you completely obliterated, I'm wondering if there's a new character in Silksinger named Nerth.

- Jay

Elise Murphy said...

I have done that to a keyboard before, too. It is so satisfying (and, well, slightly annoying).

Have you tried writing in Pages? I'm like a PSA for Pages these days. I love it!!! Word is horrible. Awful. No Good. Very bad.

Yes, I feel your heat wave even here in Bellingham. Blah. This is not why I moved to the Northwest.

Alexandra Saperstein said...

(this is the real Alexandra Saperstein, not the impostor) If it gets super hot again, I'm headed back to the Barnes n Noble cafe for another 12 hour stint. (You can meet me there and I will treat you to a frappachino!)

Alexandra Saperstein said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Scrivener is awesome! I started using it in December, and it made my life a better place. :-) Definitely full of fabulousness.

Anonymous said...

102 is very hot... you should stuff a hat full of ice cubes and put it on!

Wendell said...

Good thing you like claws! Maybe you can paint a picture of your "writing claws".

Can you at least run through a sprinkler?

Heather said...

Ironically it's hotter here in Vancouver today than it was on any day in Hawaii! Perhaps we brought it back with us.

Sarah MacLean said...

wow. i'm seriously impressed and more than a little jealous. i've never ever done that. but OH HOW I WANT TO!!!

Q said...

I think Word is okay as long as you know how to fight with it. It's better than what I have to use on my Mac (I really really really hate OpenOffice).

Sameera Ansari said...

That looks like some art in its own right :)

Have a nice weekend!

Katie Anderson said...

That is so funny Laini! My keyboard has a bunch of blank keys too!! But sadly it is NOT under warranty...

And also sadly, it is 102 here in Mississippi daily :-(

Although we are enjoying a fabulous cool wave right now!

Anonymous said...

I am laughing, totally relate to the keyboard. And the heat! Yuck, yuck, yuck...plus it has made out dogs creazy at night!

Anonymous said...

Our keyboard is black - once upon a time it had little white letters all over it - the alphabet has been greatly reduced now, though - it still works for me, but it drives Keith nuts since he's a hunt and peck, kinda typist. Isn't it interesting how certain letters get used more often? Sometime I should do a comparison of our keyboards just to see if we used up the same letters - oh, who am I kidding, I'll never get around to doing that, even though the results might be interesting...

Sorry you're having some of our summer weather up there - hope it cools off soon! Believe it or not, we don't have air conditioning in any of our rooms. Our strategy is fans. Lots of 'em - they consume less energy than a/c. We open the windows at sunset, set the fans in the windows. Close the windows again in the morning (curtains too), as soon as the sun is about to come through them (time varies, depending on which direction the window faces). We have some large shade trees, so it stays pretty bearable most of the time, even in our semi-desert heat - but then we're used to it too.
Wishing you cooler weather!

Heather said...

wow! Im impressed with your keyboard destruction! Sorry to hear you're having a heatwave, hope it gets better soon!~

Anonymous said...

Word. I had a giant bag of empty oil paint tubes that I recently made myself throw away. Sad but good. But I usually don't feel proud when a tube finishes, just poor.