How to Prevent Equipment Failures from Ruining Your Writing

There’s nothing more aggravating than having your writing flow interrupted by bad equipment. It doesn’t matter if you are writing a blog post, a letter, an article, or your doctoral thesis. Interruptions by people are bad enough, but having your equipment let you down is just one, long frustration.

So, what can you do to make sure that mental “flow” that can be so hard to get going, continues to move?

• Make sure your pencils are sharp, and that your pens have ink.
• Make sure you have a pencil sharpener, refills for mechanical pencil lead, and extra ink and refills for your pens.
• Make sure you have an eraser (or more than one).
• Make sure you have plenty of paper.
• Make sure your printer has plenty of paper. And ink.
• Make sure your computer is working reliably.
• Make sure your computer files are backed up in case it’s not.
• Make sure your chair is comfortable and your light is good.
• Make sure your door is closed and your phone turned off.
• Make sure your notes are in order.
• Make sure your notes are also backed up or safe from harm, if that’s at all possible.
• Make sure your computer keyboard and mouse are working smoothly.

I can hear you wondering, “Gee, Deb, these are excellent points, but what brought this up?”

I’m so glad you asked, because I have had the hardest time getting any writing done at all this week because the D and S keys on my laptop are sticking, or not making contact, or something which prevents them from working reliably. Which means I’ll just get a sentence going and I’ve got to stop to pound on one or the other of these keys to get the letter to “take,” and it’s just a little bit annoying.

(Please, read in as much sarcasm as you like into that last sentence. It would be hard to underestimate the level of frustration.)

How bad is it? Here, I’ll type the next paragraph without all the extra tapping to get the letters to work…

This laptop keyboard really is driving me nuts. The D an* the S just don’t want to work reliably an* it’s wreaking havoc on my writing an* typing kills…. *o very aggravating. (I’ll ju*t leave you to in*ert the mis*ing letter* on your own for thi* paragraph. I figured I woul* ju*t let the letters fill in or not a* they chose so you coul* see how often those two letters are really mis*ing when I type. Canne* air just doesn’t cut it, an* there’* no way I’m going to try to OPEN my laptop to clean it out from the inside. Argh!

I don’t have a separate keyboard, you see, and am pretty much stuck with what’s ON the laptop because I don’t have a desk to work at. When I’m at home, I sit on the floor with my laptop on a bedtray so that I can slide it out of the way when I’m not using it, so there is nowhere to put an extra keyboard. Even if I wanted to prop it in my lap, where would I keep it when I wasn’t using it? (Hey, I never told you that I had a fancy office, huh? I used to use my quaint, little, writing desk, but started sitting on the floor when I got my puppy so that I was in reach, and somehow, that little desk now holds stuff rather than being clear for writing. So I sit on the floor. And, anyway, it’s so small there’s not room for an extra keyboard up there, either. Go figure.)