ScriptSuperhero.com

I’m not sure I understand the urge to “go small” with everything. I recently bought an Insignia 4GB MP3 player, mostly for music and audiobooks. But the thing has about a 1.6-inch screen and is capable of playing videos.

On a 1.6-inch screen? Are you kidding me?

About the smallest I could imagine going is an iPod Touch screen, with features a much larger screen at 3.5-inches… about twice as big… and even that has given me squint-headaches when I’ve seen in-store demos.

I mean, it’s a nice feature and all, but practical? Not really.

It’s the same will text messaging. I like email; I can put it on my 17-inch monitor and puff the text as big as I want to; on the average cell phone, you again have maybe a 1.6-inch screen and keyboards so small, it’s hard not to hit more than one letter at a time with my big, oafy hands.

Smaller is more convenient, sure; and more portable. But, much like a woman wearing a corset, bigger’s not always better.

The days in which I needed to worry about acne treatment are now behind me, but back in those days I remember buying my first typewriter. Growing up in rural Minnesota, I worked my first job picking rocks out of a field on a local farm; I was injured on that job (run over by the rock trailer) and was unable to work much of the rest of the summer, until finally I healed up enough and landed a paper route that I kept for the next several years as my source of income.

The work I did that summer landed me a Smith-Corona electric typewriter and over the next few years I went through a small fortune in ribbons and correction take. As I recall, that Smith-Corona set me back about $249 in 1981 dollars.

Today, I placed an order for the retail version of Microsoft Office 2007 (I’ve been using a 60-day free trial version up till now, that came on my new Acer Aspire). While the package contains the best modern electronic typewriter known to man - Microsoft Word 2007 - it also has Excel and PowerPoint and OneNote in it.

The price paid in 2008 dollars? Only $119 from Newegg.com. What a difference 28 years makes.

Have you ever had your head sat on in a swimming pool?

I have. It was terrifying. I was probably not much older than eight and my sister, who did the sitting, was probably around five. I can’t remember a lot about how or why it occured; all I remember was the sensation of being sat on, with only water around me, and being suddenly terrified of drowning.

I kicked and struggled but she wouldn’t budge. Suddenly, by instinct, I did the only thing I could think of that seemed like it might work.

I opened my mouth, taking in a bit of water in the process, and bit her. Right on the rump.

She screamed, but she leaped off me and I survived.

It sounds silly and maybe even a little funny in retrospect, but the fear I felt in those few moments was real enough. Believe me, it’s not funny when someone treats your head like one of her pool toys.

In this digital age in which we live, it’s important to have the right self defense products on hand to protect your computer (and thus your work) from outside threats.

That’s why I like Kapersky Antivirus, which I recently picked up from Best Buy. In the last couple years, I’d tried and been disappointed in both Norton and PC-cillan due to incidents both my wife and I have had with those products.

Kapersky’s different; while those products update maybe once a day, Kapersky updated pretty much every hour on the hour. As such, they respond more quickly to the viral threats that can take down your hard drive and thus subject you to losing a lot of your work.

Trust me, after having not just one, but TWO computers crash on me in the space of three months last year, I’ve gone through that pain. Twice. Now, in addition to backing up my work a LOT more often, Kapersky is one of the things that gives me peace of mind about my writing being secure on my hard drive. This isn’t an official review of their product… I just was thinking about how much I appreciate it and decided to share.

It’s more expensive than other solutions, but this is one case where you get what you pay for.

Blogs are a great tool for aspiring writers. It doesn’t cost much and with the correct digital signage, you can attract an instant audience. And it kind of takes the place of journaling in the practice of writing every day.

That’s kind of what I like about it. I was never big into journals and so most of my writing time was invested in novels and short stories that somehow, by and large, never found the right market to achieve publication. Journalism helped with the need for an instant-gratification outlet, but ultimately it’s not a personal form of expression.

That’s why blogging is such a godsend to writers like me. I can blog and blog until my mind’s clear of all the stray thoughts and refuse, and then I can dig in and really get into a groove with whatever creative project I’m currently working on.

When we are young and still expanding our volcabulary, a child’s mind can come up with some pretty creative images. I remember once, when my family went camping and stopped at a grocery store for supplies. We’d picked up just about everything we needed, save for napkins.

My mom asked me to go grab some napkins and pointed me in a general direction. Being young and naive, I went an aisle too far and searched up and down it for something that said “napkins.” Finally, my eyes fell on a teal-green package about the right size, so I grabbed them and returned to my mom in the checkout aisle, proud of my achievement.

It was my mom’s turn to change several shades of green; being too young to distinguish at the time, I didn’t realize the package that said “napkins” had another word in front of it.

“Feminine.”

It was a rather humiliating case of being mistaken and I remember I was angry at being wrong about what I had grabbed, even though I didn’t understand why it was the wrong thing.

Let’s not even venture into what my age four mind conjured up by a confusing phrase like bridal shower invitations.

Sometimes if you write too much about one topic, it can get to feel a bit stale. Let it go on like that long enough and it becomes completely uninspired drivel. (Kind of like most of Aaron Sorkin’s TV work.)

So how do you combat writing fatigue? The only answer I’ve found that works but keeps you writing is variety. Churning out a lot of screenplays? Take a day off and try some poetry. Grinding away on long fiction with no end in sight? Do a blog entry.

The point is to change it up, like an overweight person trying an Orovo regimine instead of the local deli’s all-you-can-eat special. Too much of just about anything can get a bit routine after a while. Keep writing - just write something different now and again.

One of the things I don’t look forward to, even though I’ll enjoy it in many respects, is the eventual switch to HDTV. It’s not that I won’t like the improved resolution or anything; but I will be annoyed by just about everything costing more.

For example, DirecTV adds a $10 premium charge in order to receive HDTV channels. And even ancillary items like HDMI cables cost more than standard TV cables … and I’ll need a few of them to get the most out of my PS3 and Xbox 360.

Life is already plenty expensive without HDTV; it’ll only increase with it. And sure, I’ll eventually adjust. But it’s daunting, however inevitable it may be.

Don’t be afraid to write about everyday life complaints like this, by the way; Erma Bombeck made a pretty good living off of it.

Have you ever looked at a daily household item, like say your vacuum cleaner or a hand towel or your wife’s designer jewelry, and wonder how it ended up in your house; and I mean your house in particular?

Every once in a while I hear stories about defective products that have recalls done on them; sometimes it’s something I own as well. At those times, I’ll look at my copy of that item and, if it’s breaking down as described, feel joy that the thing can be fixed without money out of my pocket.

Then there are times when mine is working just fine and I’ll wonder, “Why is mine fine? Why is mine not malfunctioning like so many others are said to be?”

These are odd questions, to be sure, and if you keep them to yourself, you’ll probably end up as that homeless person who smells bad and is seen on street corners warning of invisible invaders. However, if you can engage your imagination just a bit and funnel it into your writing, such flights of curiosity can lead to all sorts of story ideas.

Lean on your weird thoughts. They’re a key to the doorway of creativity.

Except for those few writers fortunate enough to be employed directly by a company, most of us are freelancers, casting about to make a living and hoping to land on a project that goes over well enough to keep a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and maybe even a bit of security for the future.

That’s why most young writers never worry about things like whether they’ll qualify for Medicare Part D when they retire, or if their Roth IRA is properly funded. But believe me, eventually these things will matter as you enter your 40s and your health isn’t as stable as it was 15 years ago.

Plan well.

It’s always tempting to get distracted from writing. For example, to combat the coming switch from analog to digital, my wife and I took advantage of a pricing special and made the switch t DirecTV. The package we bought includes a 100-hour DVR with the ability to either watch or record up to three programs at once. And while we don’t have an HDTV with a plasma mount, the clarity of the new digital signal is sweet indeed.

Jumping from about 70 channels to over 200 means there’s almost always something to watch on at any given moment. And that’s dangerous for a writer. It takes willpower to stay committed to writing. Eventually, if you approach it as a professional, even writing can feel like work. That’s because it is work. Staying focused on the task at hand is the only way to keep producing hard copy.

Research-based writing is one of the hardest, most time-consuming types of writing one can do, but I find myself drawn into it more and more. In addition to my recent article in Ripper Notes #28, which was a brief research essay in the true crime genre, I have been writing quite a bit in the area of religion, which is also a research-heavy style of writing, if you want to do it correctly.

Whether it’s true crime or bar and bat mitzvah lessons, or research papers in my quest to become a messianic congregational leader, I’ve found that the trick to it is not so much the research, which is merely time-consuming, but finding a way to make the text lively and engaging to read while still maintaining the proper tone for such topics.

While no air tools are required, it’s still a bit of a labor to do all that research and then find a way to present it that is energetic and enjoyable. Still, it’s fun work. And it is writing for an audience. While drafting up a stage play might be more fun creatively, there’s no guarantee those efforts would ever get staged. At least with these opportunities, I know my work will be read and appreciated.