My Writing Week: Issue 15 Year 5

Laptops and Sore Fingers.

I recently had little choice but to buy a laptop computer due to the lack of quality desktops on sale in Wangaratta. One of the reasons I have been wary of laptops is that I had heard that their users were more prone to carpal-tunnel syndrome.  For the past two weeks both my little fingers have been very sore and prone to pins and needles at night. The only thing I am doing differently in my life lately is using a laptop.  

So I have re-positioning the laptop on my desk and raised my seat height.  I hope this does the job because the right-hand pinky can become very painful. There is less pain now, but I have been using the laptop less. I may end up getting a wireless keyboard.   

It would seem that I have manifested a self-fulfilling prophecy with laptops and carpal tunnel syndrome.  Now if I could only convince myself that the world is desperate for science fiction written by me…

Ideas Walking into my Head.

I had been having trouble coming up with new ideas for articles for Divine magazine.  Although I can pretty much write on any subject, the articles have to be relevant to people with a disability. I had come up with one idea about how organisations define a disability, but was having trouble figuring the approach to take.  

Last Sunday, while going on my usual Sunday walk, the article’s angle suddenly came to me.  Just as well I always carry a notebook around with me. I then noticed that I was walking past a particular organisation and another idea sprang into mind. Yay for walks and the ideas that spring into a mind not taking in a constant stream of information.

Book Reviewing Cop-outs.

I heard an interesting debate on book reviewing the other day on ABC radio. The debaters said that the Australian literature scene was so small that reviewers were afraid to give negative reviews that might offend someone they could run into at the next writing event.

Well, the Australian science fiction community seems to be very small. George Turner, who won a Miles Franklin Award way back in the 1950’s and then went on to write award winning science fiction, thought criticism of science fiction writing in Australia was woefully inadequate. This is/was probably due to science fiction writers not wanting to offend their friends. 

Anyway, the debaters then surprised me by saying that they were not against the personal reviews of bloggers, especially because there seemed to be very little genuine criticism in newspaper and other traditional review sources. So maybe my personal type book reviews on this blog aren’t that bad. 

I have recently bought a half a dozen books as a result of good reviews in The AGE. Of those, the ones I have read have been good. I am yet to find a compelling blog reviewer with similar tastes to mine, so blog reviewers have had little effect on my book buying.