Writers' Life Lessons

   Your pencil will only break if you don't have a sharpener or knife handy.  If you write notes in pencil you have a perfectly legitimate reason for carrying a small but sharp knife at all times.

   Your pen will only run out of ink if you don't have a spare.  Two is good, three is better.  More than three probably means you also have a slide rule and a pocket protector.   Geek ;-)

   Paper notebooks aren't inherently waterproof, you need to keep them in a bag or cover because writing on soggy paper with your unbroken pencil isn't easy.

   Its a good idea to have a permanent ink pen so that notes written on dry paper don't run and become illegible when you drop them in a puddle, or the bath, or leave them out in the rain after working in the garden on a sunny day.

   If  you have a wireless mouse or keyboard the spare batteries you have will inevitably be the wrong size.
   
   Licking the ends of  a dying battery to reduce the resistance before putting it back in may help the device to draw that last little bit of current and let you finish a sentence.  Do not do this with a 9 volt battery with both terminals on the same end.

   Tired batteries can be temporarily revived by warming them up on a low heat or a radiator.  Do not think of trying this with a microwave oven.  If you have a an old surplus microwave oven and an extension lead plug it in out in the garden and 'nuke' a battery to find out why ;-)

   Being able to touch type at 120 wpm doesn't necessarily make you a writer, just a fast typist.

   Learning shorthand won't, in itself, make you a journalist.  But it will really piss off ill-mannered people who try to read over your shoulder ;-)

   Develop a good short term memory.  It's probably best not to make notes at the time when people watching in a cafe.  Some people get upset  when they see you staring at them and writing things down.  Paranoid types like this can often turn abusive, and sometimes even violent.

   If interviewing someone don't rely on your hand-held recorder.  Jot down the salient points as well.  The wrong battery law mentioned earlier also applies to recording equipment.

   Sitting conspicuously in Costa or Starbucks with your laptop won't magically turn you into a writer.  Drinking overpriced coffee won't give you a career like J K Rowling unless you have the talent and the stickability.

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Paper notebooks aren't inherently waterproof...

Many years ago I was coerced into doing fence judge at a three phase event.  For reasons best known to themselves, the organisers gave me one of the most complicated fences on the entire course even though I'd never done it before.  There were three fences involved, two of them on the novice course and all three for the open, which meant moving the flags between the last novice rider and the first open one.  In addition, one of the fences would be jumped in the opposite direction.  But I wasn't to worry, said the event secretary, because all this would be explained to me and I could take notes.  And I did.  Copious ones.

And then it started to rain.  And then it rained more heavily.  Even this wouldn't have mattered if I'd been able to get my car to where the fences were, but guess what, the closest I could park didn't give me a view of all three fences.  So there's me, sitting on a tree-stump, with the gods emptying their baths on me and my copious notes dissolving in front of my very eyes.

I didn't move the flags to the right position.  The jump that was to be jumped backwards was still marked as being jumped forwards.  There were horses coming from all directions and jumping the fences in several different orders, some of them twice.  It was total chaos.  All that can be said is that (a) nobody got hurt, and (b) they didn't ask me to fence judge again.

Quote from: Jo Bannister on August 18, 2026, 10:08:50 PMIt was total chaos.  All that can be said is that (a) nobody got hurt, and (b) they didn't ask me to fence judge again.

A positive result then  ;-)

Like the old line about 'If you lend someone a fiver and then never see them again it was well worth it'.