Writers Kickin’ It Old-School

by | Oct 31, 2016 | Articles | 0 comments

Today was one of those days when I thought I might have to start kickin’ it old-school.

Not even halfway through the afternoon, my brand new modem/router went on the fritz. Suddenly, I couldn’t work. My day was already well-planned out, with social media posts for both my own accounts and a client’s accounts – mainly Facebook and Twitter, but also Instagram, and, of course, this post right here on the ol’ blog. Without warning, I couldn’t use the internet on my desktop. I couldn’t use the internet on my smartphone, because it’s also set up through my company wifi network. And I couldn’t even call for service on my landline because, yeah, the modem/router. Argh.

Of course, if I’d thought of it, I could have switched my smartphone wifi off and gone pure data suck, since I use a different provider for the smartphone than the landline and desktop setup. But I never even thought of that. I was in full apoplexy mode, calling my wife at her job from my smartphone to get a customer service number, because we don’t even own a Yellow Pages book anymore. All of this made me miss the old days, when I did everything with pen and paper or, at most, an electric typewriter. I am proud of myself for resisting the temptation to throw my iPhone across the room.

Nonetheless, something good came out of this jarring experience. I remembered that I wanted to blog about an article I’d seen recently that discusses a variety of benefits to writing by hand. I find this topic fascinating as a writer, not only because I want to keep my brain active, but also because I have some experience with writing books both by hand and by typing. You see, I wrote my first and second novels, Brothers’ Hand and Jana, respectively, by hand. However, I wrote my third novel, Miles of Files, entirely on the computer. It seems there are a variety of benefits to using the old pen and paper, from coordinating your left brain and right brain to improving your memory. Cool! (For writing an entire novel, though, I gotta say I love the iMac.)

Having everything stop working made me think about that article, but it also reminded me of what a fortunate thing it is to be a writer. If I want to write something, and all the electronic toys in the world are out of order, I can still do it. Even in the event of a major power outage, I can write with pen and ink by candlelight and feel like, I don’t know, Thomas Hardy or something.

Oh, and the end of the story? After two tech support reps couldn’t figure it out, and we set up a service call a full 48 hours from today, my modem/router started working again. No explanation, no idea why it went out. Maybe some Halloween gremlins? Anyway, I’m typing fast here, just in case. But if the thing goes down again, I’ll most likely go old-school and pick up that pen and paper.

epic launch

An Epic Launch

Today, the SEO overlords may punish me for posting something overly short. But that's okay. Because I had an epic launch this weekend. "Epic launch" is a phrase I've had in my head for a few weeks now. You see, as the publication date for Whizzers drew closer and...
paradise

The Month We Used Our Two Tickets to Paradise

​I haven’t posted on the blog since 10/3, but I have a pretty good excuse: my wife and I were on vacation. Unlike many of our peers, I especially do not like to let people know I'll be out of town. No matter what kind of security system you have, it's not easy to feel...
newsletter

A Sneak Peek at My Latest Quarterly Newsletter—And An Invitation

Okay, I'll admit right out of the gate that this isn't really a "sneak peek." My subscribers got it yesterday. Most of what I send them each quarter is content exclusive to subscribers, but every once in a while I'll share something here as well. The following is from...
writer

Are You The Kind Of Writer Who Reads A Lot?

When I was in high school, I had a real dilemma: I loved the books the teachers assigned us, and as a result, the teachers loved me. Naturally, that meant some of the other students hated me. Now, I should clarify this by saying that I didn't always love what I was...
guilt

The Problem With Guilt-Inducing Advice

I frequently see tweets asking, “What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever heard?” I don’t know if I want to comment on that, exactly, but I do have something else in mind. Probably the biggest cliché writers will ever hear is some variation on the old saw, Write...

Coming Soon: Rides From Strangers

I don't typically recommend blatant self-promotion in blog posts, though I do have a post here somewhere entitled Blatant Self-Promotion...ha! This week, however, I'm getting excited about my upcoming release, and decided it's time to talk about it again. I thought...
morning

5 Things to Do Before You Begin Your Writing Day

What should you do before you start your writing day? I've read plenty of advice on topics like this over the years, and I have to say upfront: I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way. You have to do what works for you. However, I've also tried to do things...

A Vacation Blog Post and a Manross Library Appearance

The following post has been pre-scheduled. I've never tried to pre-schedule a blog post before, so I had to look up how to do it. If you know me well, you won't be surprised by that. Hey, I'm on vacation while you read this. Modern technology! I find it interesting to...
spiritual

Do You Have An Interest in the Spiritual?

Today’s post is the second of a three-part series I’m creating on some of my personal interests. Last week, I wrote about metaphysics; this week, I’m writing about spirituality; and next week, I’ll be writing about music.Of course, the metaphysical and spiritual are...
self-promotion

What’s The Problem With Shameless Self-Promotion?

While I still find it somewhat hard to believe, I've been on Twitter for almost eight years. I know this not only because Twitter shows Joined March 2015 on my profile but also because, even if they eliminate that feature, I use a tracker called Who Unfollowed Me? If...
MLK

MLK Day 2023

Here’s wishing everyone a safe, sane Martin Luther King Jr. Day. For many of us, today is always something of a day of mourning: not only mourning the loss of a great civil rights leader, but also mourning the turn our great nation seemed to take in recent years....

Twitter Tips for Authors in 2023

If you follow my blog, you probably connected with me via Twitter, whether you’re a fellow author or not. In 2020, I wrote a post about Twitter for fellow writers that got a good response. Three years later, the landscape has changed, but some Twitter best practices...
rails

Going Off The Rails (But Not On A Crazy Train)

Last April, I wrote a blog post called Back on Track With a Work-In-Progress. Part of that post was to talk about the difference between a “plotter” and a “pantser” (and to describe myself as a hybrid of the two, a “plantser”). Another, less obvious motive, was to...
French

Those Tricky French Authors and Their Obsessions

Today’s blog post was originally going to be Write Whatever the @#$% You Want, Pt. III. However, after seeing parts I and II lined up, I decided to call an audible and make it something less repetitive. Somehow the SEO gods have gotten into my head. As I’ve mentioned...
scared

Write Whatever the @#$% You Want, Pt. II

In last week’s post, I mentioned a pretty well-known author who has publicly reported his publisher “wouldn’t touch” a new release, in part because a character in his novel referred to herself as “fat.” I heard this story on a podcast, and I remember thinking, “Wait...
censorship

Write Whatever the @#$% You Want

I’ve been stewing on this for a while. It’s been brewing for quite a while. I could probably write a song about it (how about a rap?), but I don’t think I will. This is more of a blog post topic, and it might even deserve a series. And that’s the title and topic of...
gratitude

Should Every Month Be Gratitude Month?

When I was a kid, I loved Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. I read it daily and collected nearly every paperback volume of the cartoon, so I could see what I’d missed since the comic strip’s inception in 1950.  Certain things stuck: quotes like “happiness is a warm puppy”...
robot

More Thoughts On Robot Writers and The Tech Dystopia

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post here called When Will the Robot Overlords Replace Us? Apparently, I’m fairly obsessed with this stuff, because every time I come here and empty my brain, it seems to come up again. Today is no different. Part of the reason,...