Internet Detox

Well, I've been suriviving quite well without my laptop keyboard by using an external one. However, the time has come for the laptop to be sent away for repair. During the next two weeks or so I will be without direct access to the Internet from my home.

It amazes me how much in the past 10 or 12 years I've become so accustomed to having the Internet at my fingertips. If I need to know something right away to include in my WIP I just Google it and within a few minutes I often have my answer. Amazing.

Then there is the emailing. It's more than just a social outlet for me. I'm constantly writing back and forth with my crit (critique) partners, sending copies of my work for feedback, while they send me theirs. My responsibilities on the ACFW board requires a lot of emailing as well.

For now I'll be running to the library or a friend's to use their computer. I have the use of a loaned laptop but there is no internet connection inside it that will communicate with my wireless router.

God is teaching me something in all this. Hold onto everything loosely. He is the only constant in my life. And that's as it should be. That's how He designed it.

So loosely I will hold and wait for my laptop to be returned. There's no telling how much writing I'll accomplish in the meantime. I may come back and say my entire book is done--at least the first draft :-)

Until later...

Keyboards, Diet Coke, and God

As a writer I have come to depend on my computer almost as much as I depend on the air I breathe. Without it I have no means to submit my work electronically either to editors or my critique partners who live in various parts of the country. And, I am also out of immediate touch with the board of ACFW of which I'm a member. You'd think I would be so aware of this each and every day, but as with most things I've come to take the computer and my Internet connection for granted.
Yesterday was a good day for writing. I spent the entire day working on plotting and just as I got to the the last couple plot points, I got thirsty and opened a can of Diet Coke. With my laptop on the coffee table in front of me, I leaned forward to read an email. As I read I took a swig of pop and several drops dribbled down my chin and onto the laptop keyboard. I don't need to explain what moisture does to electronics. The keyboard went nuts. I am now typing on an auxilary keyboard which is plugged into the USB port. Now I face a situation where if I take the machine in for repair I'm without contact with the outside world and have no computer to use for writing. Do I continue using the "extra" keyboard and live with it, thankful to God I at least have that? Money in this new retirement phase of my life is scrutinized deeply before I spend it. I have come to depend on God so much for so many things in my life. More today than ever before.

Isn't that what He wants of all of us?