Trains of thought
Ahh, another week gone, another night swinging on the porch. This week many people celebrated the anniversary of a famous book few people have read. I\’m proud to be at once a part of and distinguished from that group (I haven\’t read it, and I didn\’t celebrate).
I often think of writing a novel, it has a certain allure that journalism lacks (although at this point, everything\’s alluring to me as long as it fulfills my house payment). But then I can\’t stand the idea of writing something longer than I could bear to read. Already some of the things I write test the limits of my attention; forcing myself to read through an entire post to check for errors sometimes makes my lazy eye act up.
And I don\’t even have a lazy eye.
The other problem is that I have no clue what I\’d write about. I heard some writer say the other day that his whole book just \”flew\” into his head one day at a coffee shop. Unless his book was about coffee, and what really flew into his head was an errant coffee cup, that\’s pretty amazing.
Maybe I need to drink more caffeine.
H
A
!
Forget it, the ulcer-doctor who poked little video cameras down my throat said to stay away from the stuff. The only way I should be drinking coffee is if it\’s spiked with Pepto-Bismol.
So no novel for me, at least not in the near term. And no phone calls, please, I\’ll be in my study, brewing up a nice batch of iced antacid tea.
As you saw yesterday, my Spanish class commenced in earnest. It\’s three nights a week, two hours a night. I thought it was going to be awful grueling death, but it\’s actually pretty fun. Since I already speak Spanish (have since birth), a Spanish conversation class is like sitting around and, um, conversing. The only hard thing about talking in Spanish for me is slowing down to the point where they can understand me, and trying to moderate my thick Argentine accent.
To English speakers, I assume, all Spanish sounds alike (except for those Spaniards with their \’th\’ instead of \’s\’). But just as it can be hard for a Midwesterner like myself to understand a British person with a strong Cockney accent, a lot of Spanish speakers have trouble with the Argentines.
In Argentina, \”Yo\” (meaning \”I\”) is pronounced \”Sho\”, and \”playa\” is \”plasha\”. Imagine if someone came up to you and said, \”Do shou like shellow toshs?\” You might be able to figure it out and explain that no, you think yellow toys are tools of Satan, but how confident would you be that you weren\’t making a fool of yourself?
Unfortunately it\’s very hard for me not to do it (make a fool of myself), and my accent when trying to pronounce words the way other Spanish speakers do is embarrassingly bad. People are accepting though, of my failings, and I appreciate their patience.
I hope they appreciate my patience when they mangle 6 of 10 words in every sentence. I never interrupt, never correct. I am mute and cheerful, and as judgmental as a dinner plate.
Man I wish I had a study. And clever, meaningful books to fill its shelves with. And gadgets, oh how I need gadgets.
It\’s sad but true; my creativity is limited by the technology at my disposal. Before I got my laptop, last November, I was writing about two hours a week, mainly because the rest of the time the old IMB Thinkpad I had was booting up.
It\’s very discouraging to have a great idea for a story or an essay, and then have to wait seven minutes while the computer gets up to speed. And once it was running, you couldn\’t run spellcheck or even press too many buttons in a row, or it would freak out. Even at its best, that brick of a laptop could keep up with my typing, so I\’d have to type blind, the words appearing on screen when I was well into the next sentence.
When I got my new iBook G4, my productivity exploded. I started writing almost every day, on buses and in hallways. Because this thing is ready to go the minute I open it. The gap between when I think of something and when I\’m writing about it is about 20 seconds. Not only that, but I can take it (I call it Gus, if you must know, because it\’s a non-threatening name) places I never would have dreamed of taking the old computer. It goes with me outside, to class, in my car; I\’ve used it all those places and more.
But I\’ve never used it in a study, for the obvious reason that my study is always occupied. Wait, I mean, because I don\’t have a study. And the porch, while pleasant and comfortable, is a poor substitute, especially in the winter.
What I need is a wood-paneled, leather-chaired room where I can go to do writing real good. My new laptop took me to a new level of productivity; I hope a study would push me even further.
And really, if I\’m going to write a novel about a super-caffeinated, native Spanish speaker trapped forever in an introductory Spanish class, I\’m going to need a workspace suited to the task.