Sunday, 23 January 2005

We got our heat fixed a bit ago. I think it had been out for a long time, but since we have a middle apartment (with people below and above us) and a southern exposure, it wasn't obvious that we didn't have heat until that last cold snap. Then it became obvious and we finally got it taken care of.

We're still not used to it, though, and with bright sun today, we managed to get the place a bit overheated. It's about like midsummer's day in East Lansing. Brings back fond memories of Clarion.

Perhaps it's the Clarion memories, but after a long period of not getting much writing done, I really felt like sitting down to write today. And I got a lot done, almost 1400 words, my best single-day total in a long, long time. I'm pretty pleased with the words, too.

It seems like there's been a long string of obstacles these past few weeks. I was sick twice, had a two-week business trip, family obligations over the holidays, two weeks of jury duty. This weekend feels like the first in a long time where I didn't have something hanging over my head. It was good.

So, this is me at my new computer. It's gorgeous. And very speedy. And having all the screen space is handy when writing, too.

I've experimented with different window shapes and sizes while writing. I go back pre-computer, so I've typed stories on a typewriter. In the early days of computers, the standard monitor had 24 lines of 80 characters each. At work I usually use windows that are 40 lines long by 80 characters wide. For a while, just lately, I'd been using a small window, sized so that about one typed page of text would fit in it (25 lines long by 60 characters wide). I've kept the narrow width, but now I've lengthened the window to be nearly the full height of my display, a bit more than twice as long. Not that any of that makes much difference. But, anything that makes it easier is worth doing.

The past couple of weeks I've also been working on scripts for very short films--fake ads for Esperanto. I'm trying to parody general categories of ads. The first one will be on the model of an acne ad. I've got several ideas modeled on beer commercials. I'm still trying to think of one for car commercials. (One friend suggested just 28 seconds of a car driving on winding roads through beautiful scenery and then the word Esperanto appears on the screen. It has some potential, but I don't think it's quite right.)