Current page count on the Windfall novel is:  26,106. This is mostly from taking the screenplay and putting it into a novel format. There is still a lot of work to do.

It seems like there is always something lost in our house. My son is fourteen, and last month he finally admitted to us that he had lost his cell phone. We looked everywhere, called the school, and the bus company, but no phone was found. We had decided to buy him a new one because we are going on vacation in August and we wanted everyone to have a cell but we had postponed it, knowing we had several weeks before we had to make the expenditure!Last week-end, when I’d purchased my new laptop, I had gotten out an old backpack that was really an old laptop backpack. Well, last year, occasionally, my son had used it during the school season and, guess what I found inside the backpack? Yep, that’s right – the lost cell phone! It wasn’t lost at all!

The new laptop is doing what it is supposed to do. I went to the laundromat, this morning, and got some writing done while washing and drying the clothes. It is so nice to be able to do this. The laundromat actually has a desk area, complete with plugs for battery chargers! Imagine, working on a computer while doing laundry at a laundromat. When I think back to my childhood when there were no computers… Gosh, I learned how to type in the eighth grade on a manual typewriter, can you believe it? I often find myself wondering what the world will be like in another forty years. What will the world be like for my son when he is my age.

Well, I guess he’ll find out in 44 more years.

I was able to buy a laptop last week-end.  Nothing fancy but it’ll do what I need to do… lots of writing, a little bit of web-surfing, an occasional game of Majhong.  Anyway, there’s always a transition when I get a new computer, and this time was no different.

I subscribe to Carbonite and found that transferring the files from my desktop to my laptop was a breeze.  I’m in the process of familiarizing myself with Windows 7.  All this is a distraction, taking me away from the art of writing.

For example, I wrote a short screenplay and was converting it to PDF format, something I did all the time on my old desktop.  So, I press the commands to save it to PDF and I get some stupid message that tells me the computer can’t find my printer.  What the– ?  Anyway, I emailed the SP to myself at my old computer and did what I needed to do there but… it’s a distraction.

I remember my first computer back in the early 1980s.  No hard drive.  One floppy disk (yes, floppy disk) drive.  A printer that looked like a converted typewriter. I remember sitting at the computer and crying.  Oh, we have come a long way…  I think I’m on my sixth or seventh computer, couldn’t tell you for sure.  I know it’s my second laptop.  In fact, I’m using my old laptop backpack and I had to shorten the strap that holds the computer in place.  My old laptop was much bigger than the one I have now.  The old one weighed over 20 pounds.l  This one weighs only 5-1/2 pounds.

So, this week, I haven’t gotten too much writing done but I think most of the distraction is behind me.  Just have to figure out how to convert the files to PDF without getting a printer message.  It’ll all work out in time.  It always does.  I just hate being distracted!

Filming is done on Bart Vader and now it’s time to “put it in the can”.  Margaret’s enthusiasm about this project is catching and I can’t wait to see the finished the project.  She sent me a few pictures.  If you want to see them, click here.   She promised that more pictures are forthcoming.  As soon as I get them, I’ll post them.

This week-end I am going to splurge and buy a laptop! There are just too many instances in my life where, if I had a laptop, I could get more writing done.  It’s not only an investment in my writing but it’s an investment in my sanity. I am one of those people who gets really antsy when I feel like I’m wasting my time.

I got all the one-pagers reviewed over at MoviePoet.  And I wrote and uploaded a short script for MoviePoet’s contest, “White Out”.  Our challenge was to write a short script.  The topic was open but the description and dialogue lines were limited because they could not be any longer than two lines.  Lots of white space! After I decided on the story, it wrote itself. I’m feeling pretty good about this entry…