Bamboo Fun

I know.  This one is a weird title.

Back when I thought that I could manage to get my degree in Graphic Design, work full-time, maintain a household, and be a mother, I bought a Wacom Bamboo tablet.

It's been sitting in a box, gathering dust pretty much ever since its purchase, because I dropped out of my classes shortly after it arrived.  At the time, something had to give or my brain was going to break.  Considering the state of the economy, and the likelihood that I would have just been putting us several thousand dollars in debt for basically nothing (other than my pride, just for having been able to get that degree), I'm mostly okay with the fact that I elected to put my degree on hold.

I'd still love to go and complete out a Bachelor's in Graphic Design, particular since I really, really loved the structure of online classes and I'm very drawn to the field.  I'm very much a self-starter, and work great under deadlines, but I'm not especially desirous of the actual, physical classroom.

But I digress.  Back to the Bamboo Tablet.

I started off posting for National Blog Posting Month (thanks, Karrie!).  Then I realized that I just didn't have that sort of "oomph", particularly since most of my writing is done late at night, just like my sewing.  THEN, characters and a plot for an original, high-fantasy novel hatched in my brain and began demanding attention.  So I joined NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) again this year.  For those not familiar, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a novel (technically a novella) of at least 50,000 words.

Last year, I failed NaNoWriMo because I got involved in several other writing projects and just didn't have the plot or characters nailed down.  This year, I've got the plot and a good number of the main characters figured out.  The problem?  This world is twisty and turny and full of subterfuge and hidden motives and deep end-games that are only revealing themselves as I meet the characters.

This led to me realizing that I needed an intense note taking session with lots of diagrams like this:

and timelines, and outlines, and lots and lots of family trees.

I grabbed my trusty little notebook and a pen and wrote one characters name down.  Then I looked at the page and went, "F---, I have big handwriting."  I'd be using up the entire notebook just to chart out one character and their development!

Then, like that stereotypical light bulb moment, the forgotten tablet rose in my mind.  Eureka!

We found it, with a minimum of searching.  We even found the pen that matches the tablet, and an appropriate cable to hook it up to my Netbook.  Now the problem is to find someone who vends AAAA batteries after nine in the evening in this city.  That's right.  QUADRUPLE A batteries.

I'm so screwed.  I know it.  I may yet be driven to take notes the old-fashioned way, but how amazingly cool would it be to be able to have all of my world-building notes in OneNote (which is proving to be an awesomely useful program for me), and right there on my Netbook??

Away I go.  I must put on pants that aren't my comfy and holey sweats and a bra, lest I be counted amongst the People of Walmart.