For Whose Computer the Bell Tolls

Yes, I think we're all glad that's not how John Donne wrote it. The fact remains, though, that my computer is about to be retired. After I finish this post, I'll turn it off, tell my dad I'm ready, and we'll open it up and salvage what we care to salvage. After that, we'll mix the few useful old components with the new motherboard, processor, video card, tower, hard drive, and just about everything else to create a new entity. In fact, I believe the only chunks of metal we're going to end up using from this computer is the most recently purchased hard drive as a supplement, the DVD drive, the 3 1/2", and perhaps a fan.

I sorted through all my crap and figured out what files I actually want to save. I put all those on one spot on the hard drive we'll be yanking out. Then I sorted through that, decided what would induce a heart attack were I to lose it, and put that onto my flash drive. That last category is under 300 megabytes, and even some of that is just padding because I had space.

What I feel most right now is relief at letting the entire thing wash away into uncomplicated newness, and trepidation at the fact that I'm just going to start accumulating again. I would imagine that these are not the feelings most techies would feel before a major upgrade.

~Paul

Oh, and by the way...

Allow me to brag a little bit:

I wrote 50,400 words in November. It would've been more, but I decided to take November 30th off.

Okay, bragging's all done.

And no, you can't read it.

Not unless I have a temporary lapse of all forms of sanity, reason, and concern for your well being. Lucky for you, that last one's still intact.

Seriously. This novel is quite horrible, possibly hazardous. I love it to death.

Writing is bliss for me, even when it feels like I'm being dragged across broken glass (which is frequent). It gives me a direction and license to create. It's a release of pent-up emotion, energy, and neuroses. To use a quote I found floating around on the web, "Be creative. It keeps the voices out of your head." The literal truth of that may be in doubt for a lot of us, but the central meaning is that it keeps us from exploding. Writing, and creativity in general, is a Good Thing. Given that, you'd think I'd have notebooks upon notebooks upon doc files upon ink-stained napkins of written material. The thing is, though, that creativity requires a certain humility--a willingness to make mistakes and love them, or at least tolerate and learn from them--that is almost beyond me. One thing I love about NaNoWriMo is that it requires me to write less than sterling prose and to plot a tangled heap in order to keep up with my goal. This is the first time I came to grips with that fact, and this is the first year I was able to write 50,000 words I didn't have before.

When I'm willing to accept my limitations, when I'm actually willing to look them in the face, then I can finally get to work surpassing them. I began with no idea where this novel would go. I had no characters, no setting, and no plot. I now have all of those, albeit in an ungainly and unpolished form. More important, I have a better idea of how this novel should have been written in the first place. I'd like to do that rewrite. I'd like to finish up other projects I've started. I'd like to bring out some of the ideas I've never dared put to paper. Now, it's possible.


"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
--Ernest Hemmingway


~Paul