On September 15 I posted a message about Jeff Byers, who was in a coma following a head-on collision on September 7. On November 4, Jeff passed away, without regaining consciousness.
Yesterday I learned that a dear friend's daughter — a high school classmate of my daughter, and the mother of two small girls — has a rapidly growing brain tumor with a dire prognosis measured in months.
Life can change, even end, in an instant. At the risk of sounding morbid, I feel a strong urge to remind you that we don't always know how much time we have left to follow up on our intention to create a written legacy.
Write now: as if this is your last chance to tell future generations things you really want them to know and remember. Don't wait another month to form this new writing habit. And/or write about your experience with sudden or unexpected deaths; about comforting others or receiving comfort.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
Buried Treasure
While I was digging through a drawer looking for something else, I found a treasure buried deep within: my first transistor radio, small enough to fit in a jacket pocket. The last time I specifically remember listening to it was the night of the Great Northeast Blackout, on November 9, 1965. I used this radio for updates on the chaos in Boston, where we were living at the time.I received the radio as a birthday gift five years earlier. Transistor radios were quite the hot item back then, much like iPods are today. I was dying to own one, and I was simply blown away when I found this dream gift by my plate at breakfast on my birthday, together with a charger and rechargeable 9-volt battery. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that my father told me what a strain this gift had placed on the family budget. “... but I knew you had your heart set on one, and I wanted you to have it.” I fondled the small blessing and thought back in time.
Compared to now, teenagers fifty years ago had relatively few possessions, and transistor radios were the first form of portable electronic gear. I took it to school a time or two to show off, but since they were banned during classes, it seldom left the house. It did return during the World Series that fall. Being a girl was a great advantage. I could hide the cord and tiny ear piece under my sweater and long hair, and listen to the game during class. What a thrill to be able to announce the score during breaks!
As the memories faded, I opened the radio to plug in a battery for old times' sake. What a disappointment. The tiny transistors, diodes, and other components have become fuzzy with corrosion. I gently snapped the back cover in place, and returned it to its leather case. The carrying strap is broken now, and the small ear piece and its case missing in action. The label from the front of the radio disappeared ages ago. If memory serves, it was a Silvertone.
Even though it no longer works, I’ll keep the small radio in my Memory Box for at least two reasons. The first is its historical significance in the parade of portable, personal communication devices. But more significantly, of all the birthdays and Christmases I experienced growing up, this was the only time I recall getting exactly the gift I’d dreamed of.
You never know when you’ll encounter something that brings a story so vividly back to mind, but this time of year is full of memory triggers. Recipes, traditions, seasonal decorations, tree ornaments that carry generations of memories ... . Be sure to keep lots of index cards handy to capture this gifts from your muse until you have time to write.
Write now: about memorable gifts you have received, early electronic gadgets you recall, or how technology has changed your life.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
How Long Should a Story Be?
How long should a story be? As long as it needs to be.I could end the blog right there. That pretty much says it all. But, you’d still be wondering what on earth that means? Is it okay for a story to be told in a single sentence? Should it fill one page? Two pages? Is twenty-nine too many?
Don’t agonize over length. Each story will dictate its own length as you write. Some may run on for many pages, and others may fit in a single paragraph, like this one:
My most embarrassing moment came the year after I graduated from college. I had studied German for two years, and thought I knew a few words. But one evening I attended bridge club, and the the hostess’s mother-in-law was visiting from Austria. She had helped Ossie prepare elegant pastries for dessert. I wanted to tell the woman how much I enjoyed the treats, but she didn’t speak a word of English. Calling upon my best German I said, "Das kuchen sind sehr gut." (The cakes are very good.) She looked at me, shook her head and said, "No speak English." I blushed and tried again, more slowly, with the same result. She looked so embarrassed, and I was horrified that she didn't even recognize that I was speaking her language! Believe me, that was the last time I ever tried speaking German!This entire story is complete within the single paragraph. It tells who was involved (Ossie's mother-in-law and me), when (a year after graduation) and where it happened (Ossie's house), what happened (I gave up speaking German), and why (I feared further humiliation). It has a theme (embarrassment), a beginning (introduces the topic of embarrassment), a middle (describes an embarrassing moment), and an end (embarrassment put a stop to my further use of German).
Very short stories like this one are generally referred to as anecdotes or vignettes and incorporated into larger stories, but they can stand on their own. Write them and file them away. If you find further use for them later, that’s great. If you don’t, someday somebody will find that story and read it with a smile and gratitude.
Write now: about an embarrassing moment of your own, letting the story dictate its own length.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
No Right Way to Write
“I took a class in memoir writing a few years ago and the professor told us that if we were going to be successful, we had to get up at five a.m. every morning and write for two hours. Every day. I knew I'd never do that, so I didn't even start. Is that something you advocate?”
Someone in the audience asked this question during a book talk I gave recently. I swear I felt hair rising above my collar as I listened. I think she knew my answer before she finished asking.
“What did he mean by successful?” I asked, thinking he may have been assuming everyone in his class aspired to publication and professional status. Not so. By success, the professor simply meant finishing what they started. By this time my clenched fists were waving away at shoulder level and my face was contorted in outrage.
“NO WAY!” I shouted. “I absolutely do not advocate that! I don't say anyone has to do anything! Read my book, and you'll see that one of the first things I address is the importance of finding a writing schedule that works best for you.” That professor's advice may be relevant for professional writers who make a living by writing, but this woman was the perfect example of the result of issuing blanket directives to the world at large. It kept her words bottled tightly inside her heart.
Writing, especially writing lifestory or memoir, is one of the most personal things you'll ever do. You have to find an approach that works for you. If you have time and prefer to do a little bit every day, that's great. Write every day. Write for thirty minutes or three hours. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that you write, sometime, something. If life intervenes and you have to skip a day, or even a few weeks, don't beat yourself up. Just start again when you can.
The orderly routine approach works well for methodical people, and people with relatively short attention spans. The other extreme is binge writing. Some people may not write at all for days, or even months, then get an idea, sit down and write non-stop for hours. When I first began The Albuquerque Years, I spent every free moment at the computer for about three days until I felt finished with the project. Most people fall somewhere between these extremes.
Ask yourself questions like the following ones to determine your best approach for writing:
If you opt for the spontaneous inspiration mode, you'll probably find that inspiration comes more often with some form of deadline. Writing groups work especially well for this purpose, but short of that, friends or family members can be commissioned to prod you now and then.
Whatever you do, please, please, don't be detered by someone else's directives about how you should approach writing. The only right way to write is your way. Some people may offer helpful tips and suggestions that may be quite beneficial, but nobody, including Yours Truly, can tell you how you should go about getting your words on paper.
Write now: about your purpose for writing and your thoughts on the best way to manage your writing. Does a set time each day work best for you? Are you more inclined to write at the whim of your muse? Are you satisfied with your current approach? What changes would you like to make?
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
Someone in the audience asked this question during a book talk I gave recently. I swear I felt hair rising above my collar as I listened. I think she knew my answer before she finished asking.
“What did he mean by successful?” I asked, thinking he may have been assuming everyone in his class aspired to publication and professional status. Not so. By success, the professor simply meant finishing what they started. By this time my clenched fists were waving away at shoulder level and my face was contorted in outrage.
“NO WAY!” I shouted. “I absolutely do not advocate that! I don't say anyone has to do anything! Read my book, and you'll see that one of the first things I address is the importance of finding a writing schedule that works best for you.” That professor's advice may be relevant for professional writers who make a living by writing, but this woman was the perfect example of the result of issuing blanket directives to the world at large. It kept her words bottled tightly inside her heart.
Writing, especially writing lifestory or memoir, is one of the most personal things you'll ever do. You have to find an approach that works for you. If you have time and prefer to do a little bit every day, that's great. Write every day. Write for thirty minutes or three hours. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that you write, sometime, something. If life intervenes and you have to skip a day, or even a few weeks, don't beat yourself up. Just start again when you can.
The orderly routine approach works well for methodical people, and people with relatively short attention spans. The other extreme is binge writing. Some people may not write at all for days, or even months, then get an idea, sit down and write non-stop for hours. When I first began The Albuquerque Years, I spent every free moment at the computer for about three days until I felt finished with the project. Most people fall somewhere between these extremes.
Ask yourself questions like the following ones to determine your best approach for writing:
- How do you prefer to approach other long-term projects? Would you rather chip away at them a little at a time, or dive in and do it?
- What is your ongoing daily schedule like? Is it feasible to write for a set amount of time every day, or do you need to squeeze occasional writing sessions into an already hectic life?
- What is your purpose for writing? If you plan to have a complete autobiography chronicalling your whole life, and plan to have it done within two years, you may plan a work schedule rather different from that of someone who is writing primarily for self-discovery.
If you opt for the spontaneous inspiration mode, you'll probably find that inspiration comes more often with some form of deadline. Writing groups work especially well for this purpose, but short of that, friends or family members can be commissioned to prod you now and then.
Whatever you do, please, please, don't be detered by someone else's directives about how you should approach writing. The only right way to write is your way. Some people may offer helpful tips and suggestions that may be quite beneficial, but nobody, including Yours Truly, can tell you how you should go about getting your words on paper.
Write now: about your purpose for writing and your thoughts on the best way to manage your writing. Does a set time each day work best for you? Are you more inclined to write at the whim of your muse? Are you satisfied with your current approach? What changes would you like to make?
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
Color Me Obsessive, part 2
You’ve probably dumped the contents of your junk drawer or its equivalent out on a table and gone through the items. You know the joy of finding forgotten objects, the surprise at some of the debris you’ve accumulated, and the lost objects you retrieve. You know the satisfaction of putting the “keepers” back in nice tidy order.
After finishing the list of emotions that I wrote about last post, I feel somewhat as if I took my heart, turned it upside down over a sheet of paper, and shook out the contents for exploration. I was amazed at the quantity and variety of emotion words it holds. I sorted the initial tumble of words into alphabetical order to check for duplications and added others as Sarabelle sent them along. What I have right now is a basic array. Soon I’ll start sorting and clustering, and perhaps I’ll discover that there are only a dozen piles and that most of the words are other ways of saying similar things.
The resulting list will be a gold mine as a thesaurus for precise and varied terminology in stories, but as this project has unfolded, I’ve discovered unexpected additional benefits. I’ve become keenly aware of the wide range of feelings I experience, and the huge variety of nuances within clusters. As I derived the list, I envisioned all sorts of events and circumstances in my life, both positive, negative and neutral, and payed close attention to the feelings I experienced as I remembered. I’ve been through the gamut from terror to rapture, revulsion to attraction, apathy (omigosh — I do not have apathy on my list! It may never be totally complete) to engagement, and everything in between.
As I conclude the experience, I’m more aware than ever that I generally have a choice about how I view or feel about things. Having examined all these options, I’m determined to place optimism, kindness, compassion, gratitude and other “positive” emotions in the forefront for easy access. I won’t do away with the less savory ones, like envy or avoidance. I’m still human! But I can recognize them for what they are and perhaps temper them.
In the post that sparked this quest, Ybonesy mentioned Emotional Intelligence. Perhaps it’s time to read Daniel Goleman’s book by that name as a wrap-up.
The golden nugget I have discovered the last few days is that a five-minute writing exercise can turn into a potentially life-changing event. Exploration and review of one small area may ripple out into your whole life or way of thinking.
You may notice that I have not mentioned the the word count for my list. There is a reason for that. It isn’t about quantity. It’s about insight, and that’s very personal. I urge everyone reading this post to devote a least an hour to making your own list if you haven't already done so. Once you start the list, you may find additional words come spurting in over the next few days, so always have a scrap of paper and pencil available to capture the flashes, because these inspirations melt like snowflakes on a salty sidewalk.
If you are adventurous, I invite you to share your list. I’ll respond immediately with my list to anyone who e-mails a list to me at Ritergal @ gmail.com (without the spaces). On November 19, a week from this Monday, I’ll take whatever lists I have and compile them into a master document of several hundred terms. I’ll also share that with you. So, what are you waiting for? Grab those pencils and let the ideas fly!
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
After finishing the list of emotions that I wrote about last post, I feel somewhat as if I took my heart, turned it upside down over a sheet of paper, and shook out the contents for exploration. I was amazed at the quantity and variety of emotion words it holds. I sorted the initial tumble of words into alphabetical order to check for duplications and added others as Sarabelle sent them along. What I have right now is a basic array. Soon I’ll start sorting and clustering, and perhaps I’ll discover that there are only a dozen piles and that most of the words are other ways of saying similar things.
The resulting list will be a gold mine as a thesaurus for precise and varied terminology in stories, but as this project has unfolded, I’ve discovered unexpected additional benefits. I’ve become keenly aware of the wide range of feelings I experience, and the huge variety of nuances within clusters. As I derived the list, I envisioned all sorts of events and circumstances in my life, both positive, negative and neutral, and payed close attention to the feelings I experienced as I remembered. I’ve been through the gamut from terror to rapture, revulsion to attraction, apathy (omigosh — I do not have apathy on my list! It may never be totally complete) to engagement, and everything in between.
As I conclude the experience, I’m more aware than ever that I generally have a choice about how I view or feel about things. Having examined all these options, I’m determined to place optimism, kindness, compassion, gratitude and other “positive” emotions in the forefront for easy access. I won’t do away with the less savory ones, like envy or avoidance. I’m still human! But I can recognize them for what they are and perhaps temper them.
In the post that sparked this quest, Ybonesy mentioned Emotional Intelligence. Perhaps it’s time to read Daniel Goleman’s book by that name as a wrap-up.
The golden nugget I have discovered the last few days is that a five-minute writing exercise can turn into a potentially life-changing event. Exploration and review of one small area may ripple out into your whole life or way of thinking.You may notice that I have not mentioned the the word count for my list. There is a reason for that. It isn’t about quantity. It’s about insight, and that’s very personal. I urge everyone reading this post to devote a least an hour to making your own list if you haven't already done so. Once you start the list, you may find additional words come spurting in over the next few days, so always have a scrap of paper and pencil available to capture the flashes, because these inspirations melt like snowflakes on a salty sidewalk.
If you are adventurous, I invite you to share your list. I’ll respond immediately with my list to anyone who e-mails a list to me at Ritergal @ gmail.com (without the spaces). On November 19, a week from this Monday, I’ll take whatever lists I have and compile them into a master document of several hundred terms. I’ll also share that with you. So, what are you waiting for? Grab those pencils and let the ideas fly!
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
Color Me Obsessive
Ebullient. Effervescent. Inspired. Words fly around my mind like popcorn at its climax. It all started with a writing practice challenge from Ybonesy over at Red Ravine to set a time for five minutes and write, non-stop, listing every emotion we could think of. Five minutes: now that’s a challenge I can do. I can spare five minutes. I recently bought a tiny timer to keep on my desk, mostly to prevent the pizza from burning while Sarabelle has control of my brain, but also to time freewriting exercises. When the timer beeped, I had a list of 64. I was pumped, stoked, thrilled, energized. I was also hooked.For two days now, clusters of words have sporadically popped afresh. Yesterday afternoon I dared to hope I’d top 100. Before supper I’d surpassed that goal. Then the fire flared again, and by the time I went to bed last night, the count was up to 185, and 200 seemed possible.
Some nights I would have lain awake, obsessed with the search. Last night I fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow, but Sarabelle's insistent whispers woke me early. “Brain dead ... stymied ... pumped ... now get up and add those if you value my help!”
Others may be able to jot messages from their muse on a notepad by their bed and go back to sleep. I’m not one of those people. Sarabelle is a relentless taskmaster. Relentless. Isolated. Exhilarated. The list flew right past the 200 mark. Bashful — now why didn’t I already have that one? Up — another case of overlooking the obvious, and the 225th entry.
Am I done? Will there be more? I think the pot will sit quietly for a while, but I do anticipate more after-pops. I can never predict what Sarabelle will come up with.
You may wonder why on earth anyone would need 225 words to describe emotions, especially when bashful, shy, and reticent all mean the same thing. (Reticent — entry #226!) The simple truth is, you don’t, unless you strive for colorful writing. Even then, you still don’t. I could surely have derived this list in way less time, and probably have twice the entries if I’d simply clicked the link to my favorite online thesaurus.
But I love a challenge, and this one has paid off in an unexpected way. As the list grows, I find that the act of compiling it strengthens my ownership and command of the words on the list and forces me to examine various emotions more deeply than I ever have. There may another bonus. In a comment, Ybonesy writes that in a workshop she attended, a UCLA professor mentioned that a rich emotional vocabulary is linked to a rich emotional life. Presumably focusing on the nuances of variation hones our awareness of our internal states.
Lest I stray off topic, for the purposes of writing, a rich vocabulary enables us to keep our writing fresh and lively, and to paint deliciously detailed descriptions.
Vibrant. Zestful. That’s 252 and counting. Did I mention compulsive? Obsessed?
Write now: make your own list of emotions. Take five minutes to get it started, then let the list grow like a sourdough starter, one bubble at a time, for two to four days, stirring occasionally to keep it lively. You can make it even more lively by following Ybonesy's suggestion to freewrite about specific words.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
The Season Is Upon Us
Sometime in the next couple of days I’ll have to venture out of my lair and into the commercial sphere. I know things will be changed. The Halloween decorations will be gone, replaced with red and green Christmas decor. It’s that time again!This brings a couple of lifestory-related thoughts to mind. One is to urge you to write about holidays past. The focus right now is on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
You don’t have to write whole stories if you don’t have time, but as you think of them, jot some notes. Remember those index cards I keep harping on? Keep a few with you for this purpose. You might include a title line (which may change when the actual story is written, or not be used at all if you incorporate the memory in another story), and perhaps a few words or sentences to jump start the flow when you get back to it. Story idea lists are another option.
The other thought relates to gifts. A book of your stories would make a stunning holiday gift. If you haven’t started yet, it may be ambitious to envision one hundred polished pages printed by Lulu before December 25. If you already have a pile of stories, you may be able to weave something together by then, following the guidelines in Chapter 11 of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing.
Grandchildren may be among the most appreciative recipients, especially if the stories are about your happy memories that include them. They love to see lots of pictures, with themselves prominently featured.
If you need help inserting pictures in your stories, turn to page 264 in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing and follow the instructions. I do suggest you be generous in the sizing, especially if you are working with standard 8½ x 11 inch paper. It’s difficult to see details in tiny pictures, and they tend to look lost on the larger page. My experience with The Albuquerque Years proved beyond a doubt that it’s far better to avoid the temptation to resize the picture in Word or OpenOffice and use a photo editing program to resize it to the precise size you want in your document. None of the pictures I edited in the final document printed well, and I had to redo them, “the right way.”
There’s more to the gift angle than just your own stories. Nearly all of us have relatives who are so full of stories, everyone keeps urging them to “write those stories down.” They keep looking away and muttering. Wrap a copy of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing for them and place it under the tree. I know of several instances where this has worked to get the ink flowing. A typical comment:
Thanks for sending the copy of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. It was just what I needed to get a sense of how to get started and go about it. My wife and kids are thrilled that I finally got off the dime and urging me to stick with it. Thanks to you and Sharon for the nudge.You better believe my little heart went pitty-pat when I read that unsolicited testimonal in an e-mail. Few things are as rewarding as confirmation that your writing hits the target.
Write now: about holiday memories through the years. Did you have an especially memorable Christmas? Get the gift of your dreams? Do any holidays stand out as flaming disasters? Write stories, jot ideas on index cards, or expand your story idea list. You needn't be limited to memory stories. Write about your reaction to the ever-advancing onset of Christmas. Remember when stores weren't decorated until after Thanksgiving? What about the super-sizing of gifts? Expound on your pet peeves and joys.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
An Apple With a Difference
Can you imagine letting a 25th anniversary slide by unnoticed? I almost did that yesterday, but something tickled a neuron before the clock struck twelve. This event I remembered was a milestone, marking the beginning of what has become a remarkable lifestyle change for our whole family.
To put things in perspective, travel back in time with me to the evening of October 31, 1982. Immediately after supper, my husband took our older son out trick-or-treating. They only went one place, and acquiring the treat required a credit card imprint before they returned home with the loot: a single apple. This wasn’t just any old apple, it was an Apple ][+ computer, with dual external floppy disk drives, and an extra 24 K of memory. That’s right. That machine ran with a whopping 48 kilobytes of memory!
The main purpose of the purchase was to allow our son to scratch his itch to learn programming languages — he’d already mastered machine language so he could create new games for his Atari. He quickly became fluent in three languages and never lacked for odd programming jobs to supply extra cash during his college years before he began a rewarding career in chip design.
Everyone in the family enjoyed the Apple in one way or another, but to me, it was a dream-come-true. I’d long lusted for one of those magic word processing machines, but never mentioned the fact, because no way could I justify spending the equivalent of a semester's college tuition on such an indulgence. When I saw the Apple, I knew my prayers had been answered. By noon the next day I had become an expert in using AppleWriter, and transcended for all time the limitations of my trusty old Smith Corona portable electric.
Today we’d howl with laughter at the sight of that primitive old 13" green-on-black CRT monitor that showed programming codes right along with the text, sprawling uniformly from one screen edge to the other. Acres of trees and miles of printer ribbon substituted for the as-yet-unimagined WYSIWYG display. Any function change, like bold, italic or margin adjustments, had to be entered as a “dot code,” similar to HTML coding, within the text itself. It was invisible in the printed document, but did affect line length, creating some wildly ragged right margins. But oh, the power, to be able to cut and paste, and edit documents without retyping. Sheer magic!
It’s been a long road from there to the ability to lay out press-ready books to the most exacting professional standards, mixing graphics and text, right on my own computer. My personal computer today has more power than a Super Computer did back then.
Then there is the Internet, connecting me with all of you, and the world at large. There is the change in my time use. Many things I used to enjoy have sat idle for months or more.
Yes, yesterday marked an anniversary of something truly momentous, and I can no more guess what additional changes computers are going to make in my life over the next twenty-five years than I could have predicted today’s scenario back in 1982.
A couple of years ago I began a chronicle of my experience with computers over this quarter century. Maybe it's time to pull it out and add a few more.
Write now: About your early experiences with computers. What was your first? Your favorite? What programs have you loved and hated? Did you ever have system failure? How did you learn? What are your feelings about computers, and how have they changed over the years? How has the availability of a computer affected your writing?
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
To put things in perspective, travel back in time with me to the evening of October 31, 1982. Immediately after supper, my husband took our older son out trick-or-treating. They only went one place, and acquiring the treat required a credit card imprint before they returned home with the loot: a single apple. This wasn’t just any old apple, it was an Apple ][+ computer, with dual external floppy disk drives, and an extra 24 K of memory. That’s right. That machine ran with a whopping 48 kilobytes of memory!
The main purpose of the purchase was to allow our son to scratch his itch to learn programming languages — he’d already mastered machine language so he could create new games for his Atari. He quickly became fluent in three languages and never lacked for odd programming jobs to supply extra cash during his college years before he began a rewarding career in chip design.Everyone in the family enjoyed the Apple in one way or another, but to me, it was a dream-come-true. I’d long lusted for one of those magic word processing machines, but never mentioned the fact, because no way could I justify spending the equivalent of a semester's college tuition on such an indulgence. When I saw the Apple, I knew my prayers had been answered. By noon the next day I had become an expert in using AppleWriter, and transcended for all time the limitations of my trusty old Smith Corona portable electric.
Today we’d howl with laughter at the sight of that primitive old 13" green-on-black CRT monitor that showed programming codes right along with the text, sprawling uniformly from one screen edge to the other. Acres of trees and miles of printer ribbon substituted for the as-yet-unimagined WYSIWYG display. Any function change, like bold, italic or margin adjustments, had to be entered as a “dot code,” similar to HTML coding, within the text itself. It was invisible in the printed document, but did affect line length, creating some wildly ragged right margins. But oh, the power, to be able to cut and paste, and edit documents without retyping. Sheer magic!
It’s been a long road from there to the ability to lay out press-ready books to the most exacting professional standards, mixing graphics and text, right on my own computer. My personal computer today has more power than a Super Computer did back then.
Then there is the Internet, connecting me with all of you, and the world at large. There is the change in my time use. Many things I used to enjoy have sat idle for months or more.
Yes, yesterday marked an anniversary of something truly momentous, and I can no more guess what additional changes computers are going to make in my life over the next twenty-five years than I could have predicted today’s scenario back in 1982.
A couple of years ago I began a chronicle of my experience with computers over this quarter century. Maybe it's time to pull it out and add a few more.
Write now: About your early experiences with computers. What was your first? Your favorite? What programs have you loved and hated? Did you ever have system failure? How did you learn? What are your feelings about computers, and how have they changed over the years? How has the availability of a computer affected your writing?
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
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