Writing again

You'll remember from my last post that I finally caved and let Eric install a wireless card on my laptop. I was against it for several years, mainly because I didn't want the internet connection to distract me while I'm writing. Also I didn't want the hassel of the extra maintenance--filters and virus protection and firewalls; why bother?

In talking with Eric recently, I realized that my writing productivity is down because the laptop lives upstairs. To increase productivity, I needed to be able to write upstairs or downstairs. There are lots of times when I'm teaching and doing laundry and other chores that I can sneak in a few minutes on the computer, and it makes more sense to write a scene than to check my e-mail for the millionth time.

Multi-floor writing could have been accomplished in several ways. I could have saved the current copy to a thumb drive, which would hang around my neck or go into my pocket (where it would be in peril of getting washed.) I could have moved the computer downstairs in the morning and taken it back up in the afternoon; it's a laptop, after all. That, of course, would have meant bringing the power cord and wireless keyboard. That'll happen.

The only other option that we could think of was to bite the bullet and connect to the internet. That allows me to e-mail current copies of the manuscript to myself, along with current word count for my spreadsheet. (That us useful for back-up purposes, too.)

It's only been a couple of days, but yesterday I wrote almost 2,300 words. Today, I decided to get some words in while the laundry was doing its thing, and I'm at 550 already today without even trying. Early indications are that going wireless was a good idea, but time will tell whether I was right about the distraction. Although, really, if I'm going to get distracted anyway, research on the internet is a better use of time than a few mindless games of Freecell.