The Writer's Atmosphere

         [I have updated this piece, originally written in 2004. The technology I described was hopelessly out of date! Less than 4 years and there's no way you can purchas what I called the "minimum requirements" for a computer.]

The Writer's Atmosphere
(a.k.a., My Spacesuit has Sprung a Leak)

         So you're a writer (or want to be). There are several things you'll need along the way to make even a half-hearted attempt at this folly we term authorship and publication.

         Time: If you're going to take it seriously and do it right, have to consider writing like any other job and have set hours to ply your craft. It's far too easy to put off sitting down and actually doing it. When I started out, I got off my day job at 4:00 in the afternoon and was back at my apartment by 4:10 (unless I had to make a beer run, which meant 4:30). My routine was to pour a Guinness, sit in front of the computer, read the last page I'd written and then write until 6:00 (okay, so that's when JAG came on the television, but it set a routine).

         Just setting those two hours a day, five days a week, got me into the habit of cranking out an average of 3,000 words each time -- about the equivalent of an average short story. Forcing yourself into pattern like this, your mind and body turns on like a light and you'll be amazed how everything flows. Enforcing a routine is the best way I know to avoid what everybody else calls "writer's block". The ideas have simmered below the surface all day while you're busy with minor details like making a living, and pour out like a stream when you actually sit down and relax.

         Ideas: I assume you have them or you wouldn't be trying to communicate them. They are everywhere. On the job, driving on a trip (those are my best ones), talking to friends, reading the paper (or Internet), whatever.

         Everyday life contains the nuggets of "what if...". Just looking around, the possibilities for a story become endless. If you're waiting for inspiration, take along a good book. You'll be in for a long stay. There is no such thing as a sudden flash of the muse where the idea is born fully grown. It's more of a "hmmm...", and you go from there.

         "In the Beginning" came from a thought one morning of "how can I meet this person?" Well, if I were to... It grew from there. My day job at the time involved a lot of driving and I'd come up with scenes and scenarios in my head to keep from getting bored. After about a year, I had enough lined out mentally that I had to start putting it to paper.

         "Vortex" was a short story that actually did spring complete (well, almost complete) one morning while I was driving down to Phoenix past Bell Rock, a local attraction. When I saw it that particular morning, I started wondering "What would happen if lightening struck that while someone was on top?" (Long story about vortices and the Native Americans and the local weirdoes and legends...well, read the story.) In the two hours it took to make the trip, I had the whole thing figured out. I ended up blowing the job interview because I couldn't get my mind off of the story and couldn't wait to get back and write it. It took about four hours to write, two hours to edit and it sold on my first submission.

         Ideas are everywhere. Every daydream is a story. Every conflict in life holds the kernel of a scene for a novel ("If I had won the Powerball, I would...") These are what we call "hooks", the central feature of any situation that becomes a novel. Recognize them when they happen and build on them. (By the way, these hooks make great loglines for screenplays, too.)

         Materials: It used to be that all you needed was a goose quill, some lampblack, and a stack of paper. You still need the paper (better yet, stock in Weyerhaeuser or Georgia Pacific).

         Nowadays you probably need a personal computer, or, if you're really masochistic, a typewriter. I haven't seen any publisher that accepts hand-written manuscripts lately. Which computer would be best? Speaking from over 40 years in the IT field, I'll tell you unequivocally that's the cheapest one you can find that will do the job! You can order the absolute latest technology when it's just announced in the trade magazines, and by the time it's delivered to your door, it will be obsolete anyway.

         I've also discovered that brand-names are meaningless. The latest, greatest, Electro-comp 9000 is no more reliable than the Noname-100 you picked up at a yard sale. The exception would be for a laptop. They are notoriously unreliable, so newer (with warrantee) is better.

         I have three desktop PCs that I use that are networked together. My favorite (and the best) is 12 (now 18) years old and the manufacturer is out of business. I know when it finally goes to the great computer graveyard in the sky, I'm SOL, but I keep good backups (so should you). I have another that's 10 years old with no name tag, that I picked up for $35 (with monitor) from a company surplus sale. It's still going strong and flies with a (almost) current operating system (unfortunately, MS dropped suppor for Windows 2000 in 2005). The third is a name-brand that's less than a year old, dude, and I hate it! I may make that one the anchor for my bass boat.

         Features? You really don't need that many. Unfortunately, if you're going to run any relatively recent operating system or word processing software, you can't get along with less than 128 megabytes of memory and a three gigabyte hard drive (don't even think you're going to find anything that small anymore -- besides, 1GB of RAM sells for under $20 and I bought a 240GB hard drive for $98). These days, you probably can't find anything smaller, but you have to be aware that everything takes more space than it used to.

         Software? I wouldn't use a text editor because you don't have the flexibility of fonts. Most publishers and agents insist on Courier 12-pt and Notepad just doesn't hack it. There are a lot of good freeware and shareware word processors available on the Internet at reasonable (or free) prices. I found one that is 100% compatible with the latest Microsoft word processor, accepts all of the nifty formatting add-ins to make manuscripts easy to produce, and it was free.

         Peripherals? You'd have to look hard to find anything that doesn't have a CDROM. Almost all software uses that media for installation. A burner is a "nice to have", but not a requirement. Everything also comes with at least one floppy-disk drive, so you will need a supply of disks for backup...you will be doing backups, won't you? Big smile! I haven't seen a PC manufactured with a floppy drive in 3 years and everything I've seen recently has a DVD burner.

         Printers. Here I will insist that you go with the best laser jet that you can afford. Ink jet printers are useless for authors unless you are independently wealthy or have a never-ending supply of ink cartridges. A $35 ink cartridge (black) is good for about 250 pages of manuscript (on a good day). A $100 laser cartridge will give you over 2500 pages. Publishers are about evenly split between paper and electronic submissions, so a printer is a must. Get a good one. I bought several Lexmark laser printers on e-Bay for around $100 and I swear by them. A Lexmark toner cartridge will print 18,500 pages!

         That's about all you need to get started except for

         Place: Since you're a writer and ideas are everywhere, you're easily distracted (ha!). When I first toyed with the idea of writing, I lived in Atlanta. Inspirational, but much too distracting to get down to the business of actually putting words down. I moved to a small town in Kentucky with a weekly newspaper, no McDonald's, and a population under 10,000 for the entire county. Now, here I could write! (There was nothing else to do.)

         I set up two PCs on the kitchen table (it was the only table -- small apartment) and could type away without distraction. In four months, I had two novels in first draft.

         Now I've moved again to another small town in Arizona that's an artist and writer's colony (remember the weirdoes I mentioned?). I'm not saying you need to pick up stakes and head out to the boondocks, but it's essential that you at least have some place where you can lock yourself away and just daydream (on paper).

         Where I'm at now is tremendously inspirational and relaxing (I'll link to some pictures at the end), and I can't think of a better location to actually sit and do it.

         My point is, your situation has to be conducive to letting your mind roll on so that you can concentrate on what you want to do. Some authors can write in Manhattan if they do it in the middle of the night. I like my sleep, so I'm in the middle of the desert.

         Whatever works for you.

http://ca.geocities.com/vladilyich/godscountry.html God's Country for writers!