No internet. No emails. No camera or pictures. No color screen. You can write. That’s all. Nothing else. It runs on two AAA batteries (rechargeable) for about 15 – 20 hours. You can change the size of the font and invert the colors. Really, that’s about it. Oh, and there is a calendar, but I never use it. It can’t do half of the things that PDA’s could a decade ago, but it was an incredibly worthwhile investment for this writer. I had thought about buying a Macbook Air, but I already have an iMac and really have no need for another computer. Nor did I want all the distractions that would come with writing a first draft on a laptop. I wanted pared down action. And the DM20 is my focus machine.
If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.
-Ursula K. Le Guin
Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In general…there’s no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we’re going to die; what’s important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.
-Anne Lamott
Fiction is about stuff that’s screwed up.
-Nancy Kress
Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil—but there is no way around them.
-Isaac Asimov
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
-Oscar Wilde
Find what gave you emotion; what the action was that gave you excitement. Then write it down making it clear so that the reader can see it too. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.
-Ernest Hemingway
Meet Larry Principe, the modern alchemist. Dr. Principe is science historian at John Hopkins University. Part of his job entails that he learn how past alchemists thought, interpret their recipes, and look out for any clues on how to create the legendary philosopher’s stone.
If you want to read up a little more about alchemy, I found this paper published by the Theosophy Company, which is a whole other blog post for the future.
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
-E. B. White
