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How prevalent my PC
May. 15th, 2013 12:51 pmBeing without my main desktop PC is always a weird thing...I've had a desktop PC every day since 1996 and used it on an almost daily basis for my writing ever since then. [Contrary to how it sounds, my music collection wasn't a part of my PC setup until about 2001, when I started burning compilation cds. I listened to the physical cds for the most part and didn't start ripping them to a hard drive well until about 2004.] And currently, when I'm not on the PC, I'm using my laptop instead. So either way, you could say I'm online and/or working on something pretty much every single day.
That's not to say that I'm chained to the thing. When we're on vacation, I've been using my Nook or my phone to go online and catch up with things if I so choose. I get the occasional twitch that I wish I had my music with me, but it goes away pretty quickly. I can easily check my email and Twitter feed on my cell phone. I still try to work on the occasional thing longhand like my poetry, and plan on doing more of it once the Great Trilogy Revision calms down a bit. Still, it's nice to have the thing when it's needed.
So in light of yesterday's sad and pathetic death of Spare Oom PC [for the record, it turns on, it just doesn't want to run Windows anymore], it's made me think about my writing output. Since I work from home, I have to balance my work stuff and my writing stuff, and creating things like this blog post, which would probably take twenty minutes to type out on any other day actually takes a good couple of hours, hastily typed in the occasional free minutes between things. And the Blogging the Beatles posts usually worked on all Sunday afternoon and posted that evening--that's why one of my ideas was to try working on those over the course of a few days rather than an entire day.
I'm trying not to opine about how I time-managed my writing in the past this time...instead I'm trying to learn from how I did it then and implement some form of it in the present. A lot of it really does have to do with how much time I waste...as much as I try to convince myself I'm cutting down, I'm still driven to distraction by social media and my music collection. It's a work in progress, I suppose. I'm not going to go the "disconnect the internet for x hours" route, because I do end up using it a lot for quick reference when I actually am writing. And besides, my boredom level with the internet in general has dropped to the point where I'll goof off on Twitter or YouTube for a half hour simply for some mindless downtime after work. The music collection can be a black hole sometimes, though. Having the temptation to reorganize, retag, peruse it for hours on end for listening to things I haven't heard in a while, or what have you...but over the last few months I've actually been a LOT better with it than I have. I think a lot of it had to do with narrowing my focus on the task at hand: in this instance, the major revision of A Division of Souls. I gave myself ten minutes to decide on what I'd listen to during that writing session, and stuck to it while I focused solely on that revision, and I think it's working.
Either way...it does feel kind of weird not to have it on, after all these years of constantly having it turned on for hours on end. I am doing a bit of comparison shopping in the interim...as mentioned yesterday, I'm kind of leaning towards another Gateway, since this one worked so well during the time I had it...it was worth the price I paid for it. And while I'm not exactly devastated without a desktop PC--I'm adjusting just fine with my laptop, if working just a bit slower--it'll be nice to have a replacement as soon as possible.
That's not to say that I'm chained to the thing. When we're on vacation, I've been using my Nook or my phone to go online and catch up with things if I so choose. I get the occasional twitch that I wish I had my music with me, but it goes away pretty quickly. I can easily check my email and Twitter feed on my cell phone. I still try to work on the occasional thing longhand like my poetry, and plan on doing more of it once the Great Trilogy Revision calms down a bit. Still, it's nice to have the thing when it's needed.
So in light of yesterday's sad and pathetic death of Spare Oom PC [for the record, it turns on, it just doesn't want to run Windows anymore], it's made me think about my writing output. Since I work from home, I have to balance my work stuff and my writing stuff, and creating things like this blog post, which would probably take twenty minutes to type out on any other day actually takes a good couple of hours, hastily typed in the occasional free minutes between things. And the Blogging the Beatles posts usually worked on all Sunday afternoon and posted that evening--that's why one of my ideas was to try working on those over the course of a few days rather than an entire day.
I'm trying not to opine about how I time-managed my writing in the past this time...instead I'm trying to learn from how I did it then and implement some form of it in the present. A lot of it really does have to do with how much time I waste...as much as I try to convince myself I'm cutting down, I'm still driven to distraction by social media and my music collection. It's a work in progress, I suppose. I'm not going to go the "disconnect the internet for x hours" route, because I do end up using it a lot for quick reference when I actually am writing. And besides, my boredom level with the internet in general has dropped to the point where I'll goof off on Twitter or YouTube for a half hour simply for some mindless downtime after work. The music collection can be a black hole sometimes, though. Having the temptation to reorganize, retag, peruse it for hours on end for listening to things I haven't heard in a while, or what have you...but over the last few months I've actually been a LOT better with it than I have. I think a lot of it had to do with narrowing my focus on the task at hand: in this instance, the major revision of A Division of Souls. I gave myself ten minutes to decide on what I'd listen to during that writing session, and stuck to it while I focused solely on that revision, and I think it's working.
Either way...it does feel kind of weird not to have it on, after all these years of constantly having it turned on for hours on end. I am doing a bit of comparison shopping in the interim...as mentioned yesterday, I'm kind of leaning towards another Gateway, since this one worked so well during the time I had it...it was worth the price I paid for it. And while I'm not exactly devastated without a desktop PC--I'm adjusting just fine with my laptop, if working just a bit slower--it'll be nice to have a replacement as soon as possible.
