The Saga of a Laptop and a Carry-On Suitcase

This year’s vacation was a Baltic Sea cruise that left from Stockholm, Sweden and ended in Bergan, Norway. We were delayed on the way to Stockholm when our connecting flight got cancelled due to a drone over the Frankfurt airport. Flight delays are always possible, and there wasn’t anything we could have done about it.

But maybe I could have foreseen and prevented the snag we faced on the way home.

Last year I bought a small suitcase and made sure the dimensions complied with the international carry-on restrictions. There was an outside, zippered pocket that was perfect for my laptop and plenty of room inside for my camera bag. So when we packed for our cruise, I used my new suitcase and a messenger bag as my carry-ons.

That worked fine on the trip over, where both legs were on international carriers. Unfortunately, Bergan is a smaller airport and we had to fly from there to Copenhagen to catch the flight to Chicago. The plane we got on at Bergan was a small, domestic one, and my suitcase didn’t fit in the overhead bins, let alone under the seat. The flight attendant checked it at the side of the plane, but I had to take my laptop and my camera bag out first. The camera bag worked as my second carry-on, so that was fine.

But my laptop was a problem.

I had been using a large laptop as my primary and only computer, and I used it both at home and on trips. I had never been entirely comfortable doing so, however. What if something happened to my laptop while on vacation? Although the most important documents are backed up, I tailor my programs to my needs, and Word especially is highly customized. Losing my laptop would mean downloading new programs and spending long hours modifying them. I have considered buying a tablet and taking it instead, but that isn’t a good fit for me. I prefer larger screens and keyboards, and most tablets aren’t well-suited to the work I would want to do on them.

Back to Bergan, Norway. When I tried to fit my laptop into my messenger bag, it was too big. I finally put it in with the short edge down and left the flap of the bag open with the laptop protruding, but I knew I had to find a better solution for the future.

My older brother had purchased a separate, smaller laptop for use when travelling, and I realized that might be my solution, too. In fact, I even thought about using his. Donald has Parkinson’s Disease and some of the complications have made it unlikely that he will ever need his travel laptop again. But when I checked it out, I discovered several issues. First, Donald had customized it for his needs, and they aren’t mine. Second, it has been a while since he undated it, and I’m not sure how much of a problem that is.

The biggest issue, however, is that Donald’s travel laptop has minimal memory and storage space. Even when I cleared out everything I knew I didn’t need, I still couldn’t download and adjust photos efficiently. Donald seems to have solved that problem by storing everything in the cloud, but that wouldn’t work for me. Some of our vacations are to exotic places that might not have WiFi access, and I want to be able to download and adjust photos while I still remember what they are. And there aren’t enough USB ports on Donald’s travel laptop to allow me to use both a card reader and a thumb drive at the same time.

So I gave up on that idea and went out and bought my own. This is a Dell XPS13 with 8GB RAM and a 256 GB harddrive. It wasn’t cheap, but it has what I need and, at 12” wide, it fits into my messenger bag the long way. It has USB-C ports rather than the more traditional USB-2 or 3 ports, but a $10 hub resolves that issue. You can see the difference in size in the photo at the head of this post.

Of course, I will have to copy documents and photos between my home and travel computers, but I can limit the process to the documents I expect to work with while on vacation and the photos I take there. And I won’t worry as much about losing my laptop when my primary computer is safe at home.

I still plan on using my current carry-on suitcase for international travel, but if I run across another small plane as I did in Bergan, it will be much easier to take out the travel laptop and transfer it to my messenger bag. A travel laptop isn’t the perfect solution, but it is the best for me for now.

Because a computer is one of my most important travel accessories.

Experimental Literature

Last week I reprinted an IWC blog post about mixing creativity and formula. As I noted in that post, some people disdain formula and assume that only “different” can be “creative.” Unfortunately, these are often the same people who write bad experimental literature.

Personally, I’m not fond of experimental literature. While some of it is good, I won’t know that until I read it, and I’ve got such a long reading list already that I don’t need to add something I might not enjoy. But my bigger issue is that I have read some experimental literature that was awful. In those cases, the “creativity” that may have existed in the author’s mind didn’t make it onto the written page. Some attempts even sound as if the writer tried experimental literature because he or she was too lazy to figure out how to be creative in a more traditional format.

Not that I haven’t tried experimental literature myself. A few years ago, I decided to write a novel made up of passages taken from a dozen classics. As I planned it, the only aspect that would be original with me would be the choice and arrangement of the passages. Each paragraph would be taken verbatim from a single source, except that the names of the characters and places would be changed to maintain consistency throughout the story. I had chosen the source novels and created a basic plot, but I was unsuccessful in the execution. Bad experimental literature is worse than none, and I wasn’t going to write something I wouldn’t be willing to read.

Maybe I’ll pick that project up again someday, but for now I have too many other ideas competing for my time. These more traditional ideas provide plenty of scope for my creativity, so I’ll stick with what I do best, at least for now. 

If you want to try writing experimental literature, I wish you all the best.

Just make sure it isn't the lazy way out.

Mixing Creativity and Formula

This week I am reprinting another blog post that I wrote for the Indiana Writers’ Consortium blog. This one originally appeared on February 21, 2018.

Mixing Creativity and Formula

I’m tired of hearing people run down so-called genre fiction because it follows a formula, as if that means it lacks creativity.  Yes, some genre fiction is only minimally creative, but that’s the fault of the author, not the genre.

Take romance, which is often cited as the archetype of formula fiction. I don’t write romance and rarely read it because I have limited time and generally prefer other types of novels. But I do read it occasionally, and one of my favorite authors fits perfectly into the romance “formula.” More about her later.

Here is the definition of the “Romance Genre” found on the Romance Writers of America’s website at www.rwa.org/romance.

Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. A writer can include as many subplots as he/she wants as long as the love story is the main focus of the novel.

An Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love.

This “formula” leaves a lot of room for creativity. As the RWA website goes on to say, “Romance novels may have any tone or style, be set in any place or time, and have varying levels of sensuality—ranging from sweet to extremely hot.” Setting, characterization, plot twists, word choice, and many other elements of romance writing provide as much opportunity for creativity as literary and experimental fiction do.

For illustration, here are summaries of three stories written by my favorite romance novelist. All three books have (1) a central love story developed through a main plot that centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work and (2) an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending where the lovers’ struggles result in emotional justice and unconditional love. See if you can identify the books and/or the author.

1. The two protagonists love each other even before the novel begins, but a well-meaning friend causes her to reject his marriage proposal. When they meet again years later, events, misunderstandings, and the romantic intentions of other parties conspire to keep them from renewing their relationship. Eventually, however, the protagonists realize that they are meant for each other and find happiness together.
2. The female protagonist is brought up by her aunt and uncle but is treated as a poor relation. When she falls in love with one of her cousins, she keeps her attraction secret because she knows his family would never consent to a marriage between them. But when the consequences of the family’s shaky values threaten to ruin their social position, the protagonist’s inner worth shines through and the lovers are united at last.
3. When the protagonists first meet, neither likes the other. They are continually thrown together, and the male protagonist falls in love in spite of himself. He grudgingly proposes, is rejected, and leaves. Soon after, the female protagonist’s sister elopes and threatens to bring disgrace to her family. After the male protagonist spends time and money to secure the marriage, the female protagonist realizes that she loves him after all. But it is too late! No, it isn’t. This is formula romance, and the two lovers end up together after all.

By now, you will have guessed that I’m talking about Jane Austin. Here are the titles that go with the summaries: (1) Persuasion, (2) Mansfield Park, and (3) Pride and Prejudice. I could have used many more examples, since Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey all follow the same formula.

I’m not saying that everyone should write to a formula. On the contrary, the world would be a barren place without any love stories that end in tragedy or authors who dare to try something new.

But I am saying this: don’t condemn genre novels that write to a formula, because creativity and formula CAN mix.

To Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth?

As I record memories from my life, I face a dilemma. If I decide to rework the manuscript for publication, the dilemma will get worse. Should I tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or should I gloss over situations and events that may embarrass others? Unfortunately, this is a dilemma that everyone who writes a memoir must struggle with.

I’m not talking about making stuff up or leaving out details that would mislead the reader—both of which I believe are unethical in nonfiction. It’s more a question of blurring identity—changing names (or not using them at all) to protect the innocent and the guilty.

The problem is that it doesn’t always work.

In the photo at the head of this post, my husband is pretending to have been caught by the East German border guards. Roland’s face is hidden, but his body shape and white hair are familiar to anyone who knows him well. In the same way, I could try to make people anonymous by leaving out their names, but unless I bend the truth, which I believe is unethical in a memoir, people who know them will recognize them from the circumstances.

I attended a memoir-writing workshop several years back with a presenter who had painted a very unflattering picture of the people in her family. She knew they would be hurt and the memoir might create a breach that would never heal. But she felt the story needed to be told, and she was willing to risk the hurt and the breach to tell it. That was her response to a personal question we all must decide for ourselves.

I’m not worried about my own family, but I have had situations in my life where co-workers and so-called friends did things they would not like to see in print. If I prepare my memoir for publication, I’ll have to decide how important those incidents are to the theme. If they aren’t necessary, I’ll leave them out. But if they are, then changing names or using none at all might be the only option that feels right.

But it’s a dilemma.

__________

I took the photo in 2016 when we were visiting the Berlin Wall.

To Publish or Not to Publish?

I’ve been recording my memories in an informal memoir written with my children as the intended audience, I recognize that my life hasn’t been as hard or as tragic as the ones chronicled in some of my favorite memoirs, but it has been interesting. I took my first trip across the Atlantic when I was six and my family travelled to Amman, Jordan to spend the school year. Four years later, we lived in Edinburgh, Scotland, for most of a year. Although living abroad isn’t as unusual as it was in the 1950s and 1960s, it’s still not a common childhood experience. And living with my father was exciting in other ways, as well.

The question is, should I use the “get-it-all-down” manuscript as source material for a memoir aimed at a wider audience? If I do, I will need to choose a theme, develop a structure, and decide which memories and events to use, since much of what I am recording for my children wouldn’t interest people who don’t know me. Writing a memoir for publication would be a far more difficult project than simply recording my memories for my children.

Fortunately, there is help at hand. I learn best by example, and I have read many good memoirs over the years. My favorite is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Then there is Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston, which inspired my first middle-grade historical novel, and The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, which goes beyond The Diary of Anne Frank in providing insight into the horrors invoked by the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands.

I’m also grateful for the help provided by my good friend and writing colleague, Janine Harrison, in an October 26, 2017 post she did for the Indiana Writers’ Consortium blog. If you are interested in writing a memoir, check it out at http://indiana-writers-consortium.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-space-between-giving-voice-to-real.html.

At this point, the most important task is to make a record of my life in case something happens to my memory.

But I’m not ruling out a formal memoir.

__________

Daddy took the picture at the head of this post in September, 1957. Mama, my brothers, and I are posing in our cabin on the HMS Nova Scotia as we crossed the Atlantic Ocean.