Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Battles with Technology

I have been turning over a new leaf (cliché) as I think the computer, the internet, myspace, myblog, etc. are all big timewasters. It’s all too easy to wander around looking at this and that, instead of doing something. I bet Virginia Woolf never had anything like that to lead her astray. Even apart from the novels I would have written, or other such creative pursuits, I’m not even getting basic housework done.

So I was very disciplined on Sunday and didn’t switch on the computer till mid-afternoon. That meant I dealt with the ironing, which otherwise would have gone out of my head and talked to my daughter and a friend on the phone, before I gave in and did a bit of browsing on the net and read my emails.

Sometime on Sunday, or possibly Monday, I managed to finish off a short story for a Writers News (www.writersnews.co.uk) competition. No panic to get it in, so I’ll have something to read next Tuesday, at Guildford Writers (http://www.guildfordwriters.net).

Yesterday, in one of those moments when you think you are going to be efficient, I decided to copy my works to a CD. I use a three generation method, where the CD you are copying to is not the most recent. When I found it was full up, I agreed to deleting all previous stuff, but for some reason, it was reluctant to copy. I went and cooked, and subsequently ate, the evening meal - chicken soup followed by chicken, pineapple and rice if you’re interested – and returned to it, by which time it had churned around for at least two hours and told me it had dealt with 9% of the CD. At this point I took the thing out and cut it up, and found another CD to copy to. However, it had got me worried about the amount of unnecessary stuff on the computer, and I carried out an orgy of deleting. But it seems however much you try to delete things they pop up again in another form. Windows has some crazy system whereby I not only have My Documents, but a second My Documents within the same folder – same with My Pictures. I can access more than one file called My Pictures and one file has photos which I’ve tried to erase at least twice and the other file hasn’t got the pictures I want it to have.

Out to lunch with Irene http://www.thisthatfromireneblack.blogspot.com/ and Val, a non-writing friend. Did Irene have her camera with her, I wonder? Her Blog and MySpace are usually filled with wonderful photos of life on the hoof. Our conversation ranged from heavy social issues to the TV crime dramas which we’re currently enjoying, with a bit of politics thrown in. Will Gordon Brown ...? Will Hilary Clinton ...? A person at a neighbouring table seemed to be listening more to our conversation than participating in one with his wife. I in the meantime was equally fascinated by watching the pair of them work their way through scones, jam and cream. I vicariously enjoyed each heaped spoonful that passed through their lips.

2 comments:

Anne Brooke said...

Ah, scone voyeurism, Jackie - it's the slippery slope!... But well done on the deletion orgy though. (Hmm, is there a theme in this posting??!)

==:O

A
xxx

Jackie Luben said...

I have deleted about 3,000 emails from Guildford Writers, since my daughter grumbled at me. Only problem is I have to read them first. It's a bit like reading the newspapers before wrapping potato peelings and orange peel in them.