Book Journey Letter 2
The Book Traveller Writing Letter 2
Hi Friends,
The Book Journey continues with letter 2. As I expected, it is hard to combine writing blogs and, at the same time, create a book. My priority is twofold: communicating with others and preparing my manuscript. At last, I have understood that I must eliminate even more activities and leisure time to reach my goals:
- A minimum of watching television
- Planning my daily life more efficiently
- Not being too stressed
Every day, I meditate, but the problem is that I fall asleep when I do it. Because I write a lot, which is energy consuming.
Short and Concise
My manuscript is growing. I have written 160 pages and hope to land with 200 pages. The Zeitgeist is that a text should be as short and informative as possible. In contrast, when I created Motivational Work Part 1-4, the objective was to profoundly explain my theory and method no matter how many pages it would take. The intended public consisted of professionals.
In my new manuscript, I focus on everyday life and ordinary people. It is an entirely different perspective. The contents must be concise, explicit, and short.
The Dark Side of the Bubble
In my first letter, I pointed out how being in a bubble and formulating sentences is a pleasure. However, I have been reminded of the dark side of writing. For many years, I have saved different cases, some stored on DVD. Two weeks ago, I put the DVD on my computer.
The first day, everything went fine. I could copy several files to my hard disc and the Microsoft Cloud. On the second day, the computer refused to load files. An error message came up that I had lost contact with the Cloud. The program could not save my files. I tried to do the old trick of restarting the computer, but there was no change.
Now it came all back to me, memories of computer hassle. It was profoundly stressful because I depended on the digital machine functions. I tried to make the computer tick again for five hours, but all my efforts were in vain. When I went to bed, I was not in a good mood. Nonetheless, I tried to be rational. There must be a solution.
Approaching the Abyss
Obviously, the files on the DVD were created with a much older version of my writing program. Conversely, my anxiety began to rise. Perhaps it was impossible to continue to use my computer because of the conflict with the old and new versions of the program. Eventually, it would end up not retrieving any files from my manuscript. Everything would crash.
Firm Determination
The following day, the computer insisted that I burn all the files on the DVD to the DVD. With grim determination, I deleted this message. Then I tried to open other files, and suddenly everything functioned. What a relief. With nostalgia, I remembered my first book, published in 1986. The whole manuscript was typed on a non-electric typewriter. There was no digital fuss whatsoever around. On the other hand, it took some time to formulate the text.
Once again, the incident with my computer reminded me of the desertedness in the bubble when it goes wrong. Especially if the solution to the problem is nowhere to be found in the help functions of the computer program. Calling friends was futile since the trouble was so rare. Who would copy a file fifteen years old?
The Kind-Hearted Spirit
The result of the traumatizing event has made me even more cautious when I use my computer. Overall, my experience has not made me more confident with my computer. Immediately after the problem was gone, I almost had a spiritual revelation. It was as if a benign power took control of the computer and helped me. Thus, the next time a similar trouble occurs, I will address the problem the same way: clicking around and hoping for a kind-hearted spirit to reveal itself to fix everything.
