Notebooks

In Korea, I have one laptop that stays on my student desk in my apartment. It is hooked up to the Internet. I asked for wireless, but the company did not seem to have it. Others in this tech savvy country seem to have those long trailing telephone lines all over their apartments attached to their computers. The only wireless service for computers have been in some universities. I don't know why but there you are.

At first, when I wanted to write somewhere else I really missed not having this laptop to work on my book of short stories. Then I adjusted by buying those cute little books of blank paper they sell in Korea that are of high quality and low price. I have a bunch of them. I use them to write essays and the short stories when I am not in my apartment. I have discovered by the very act of putting them into the computer I have added one more step of editing. It has worked out. I also don't feel encumbered by carrying a laptop over my shoulder.

I had looked around where I normally sit when I am not home, drinking coffee and enjoying cheesecake or a rice burger and I did not see a plug and I am certainly not going to get wireless service. As I wrote, Koreans have it for their cell phones but not for their computers for some reason.

There is something about the act of physically writing that gives one detachment when writing about the story and characters. I don't know if it would have worked for a novel, but for a book of short stories it is working out very well. I think it would work out for a novel if I worked on a chapter at a time. Still, it is not only convenient but fun.

Then I have my journal. I am trying to deal with issues and matters before I go home in three weeks. I don't want to return to the world I was living in before I came here. I had a monster writer's block. I don't have one now. Sometimes, when writing about my dysfunctional family background, I like to be in public. I feel safer, more comfortable than writing about these things alone in my little room.

There are other reasons for the written journal. I also draw pictures in my journal and nothing trains the eye more than drawing. I have been drawing with a black pen and then filling it all in with some colored pencils that I got at Home Plus. The price of the more expensive pencils were a lot cheaper in Korea than in the US. I know there is a way of drawing on the computer, but for meditation reasons, I like doing it by hand. I am also a big believer in writing meditation and create my own way of doing it as I go along.

Many of the notebooks that I have bought here in Korea have English on the cover and some nice artwork. As mentioned before, the quality is very good and they are about one dollar or less apiece. I spent ten dollars and bought ten of them. I bought all that they had with art work featuring a zebra. I even bought an extra blank journal because I am going faster in my journal than expected. I also have one on my computer.

Of course, every writer does what he or she must do to facilitate the writing. I know writers who have to use a certain brand of pen and never use a computer. They send their stuff out to a typist. I know some that stand up and write while others sit in bed and one that loves sitting in the tub (with hot water, natch.). With notebooks, I can sit in bed if I want especially as the weather is cooling down, and it is so warm in bed.

One of my pet peeves are people who tell you how to write. I am trying to learn to keep my mouth shut. I was sitting in Home Plus and several women from a church I attend came by and one of them said as I put a sticker on the date on my journal that "I was like a girl and her diary". I like to use stickers and draw later. I was really pissed but kept my mouth shut. This is a woman who never wrote a journal and that is her choice but I have been writing non-stop since the age of 13. Another writer told me never write in bed because it was so lazy. Very famous writers wrote in bed.

Writers are the freest people on this planet. Be ready to put your hands over your ears when someone tries to tell you how you should write. Create your own system and if it works, use it without guilt. The biggest problem I had in writing was listening to other people including writers. There is only one writer you should ever listen to, and that is the writer that is sitting in your chair. That writer speaks volumes if allowed to speak.