Feeling smugly pleased with myself

No, I haven't landed that £1m book deal, but I have managed to figure out how to print index cards! It took a bit of faffing about, but I finally succeeded by using the labels format and setting the dimensions manually. Is it only me who gets unbelievable satisfaction from solving computer problems?

I've also had a bit of a breakthrough with the old plot analysis I mentioned in the last post. I had been writing the story with the wrong main character. Instead of the haunted female, why not make her love interest the lead? Tell the story from his POV and make his character arc primary to the story?

I took a couple of days to break it down and dammit if it doesn't fall into place. Not only that, I'm feeling a bit of the old excitement rising - he is a much more interesting character to play with and there's more scope for tension and mystery.

Hence the need for index cards. In sorting out the plot lines, I need to have the beats in front of me. You can invest in software for this (I know because I've road tested most of it) but nothing beats a 2x4 board and some 3x5 cards stuck on with blu-tak. You can move them around, shuffle or discard - even in a power cut.

But handwritten cards are hard to read and don't carry enough info. Printing is best. So you can imagine my delight at figuring out my little computer conundrum. Result!

How was it for you?

Well, that's it for another year. Did Santa bring you something nice? Or was it the usual cheap aftershave and socks?
I'm quietly chuffed because I got the new iMac I've been promising myself for years. And so far I'm very impressed - nice solid piece of kit with lots of bells and whistles. I hadn't expected the whole itunes thing,especially the radio channels of which there are hundreds with all sorts of music which saves me the wasted half hour trying to decide which cd to put on when I write. Very nice. The only game is chess, which I haven't played in years and never was much good at anyway. But it's no bad thing to have fewer distractions.
And I'm finally getting to use Scrivener. So far I haven't done much on it but it's early days. Last night I figured out how to import some images of my characters. I"ll keep you posted about my progress.

What's happening to all my gadgets?

The planets must be in a peculiar alignment or something. Did Nostradamus predict this? Everything technological seems to be crashing out on me this month.
The laptop is only just back from the shop where it had to get its ego stroked for the second time this year. Even so it still goes into a massive sulk whenever it has to download an update - which seems to happen far more often than strictly necessary if you ask me.
The dvd player gave us a turn the other night, unilaterally deciding to self-check while recording an episode of my favourite sitcom. OK it hasn't repeated this bizarre behaviour but I get the feeling it's biding its time.
Then last night the sky box finally gave up the ghost. To be honest I'm not too bothered, we'd been debating whether to say F***Off to the Murdoch empire for a long time but never got around to doing it. Now this has forced our hand and we'll get a freeview box instead.
But I'm anxiously wondering what's next on the techno meltdown.

Still, on the plus side my spanking new Mac is sitting under the Christmas tree waiting for me to excitedly switch on come the Big Day. Hopefully it won't give me any problems...