I miss the Siskel-bickering.

t Nods head vigorously.

I don't even to bother trying to catch them. I used to like it when Siskal and Ebert would just start laying into each other. You could see them putting each other's backs up. I always wanted to see one of them throw something at the other.

Deb, what's your preferred file format?

connie, a Word attachment is best.

Fuck the person who tells me what to feel. But I am curious about what they feel.

Yes on the first part of that, as you know. Unluckily, that's been my experience with the academic end of it, every. single. time: the assumption that I can't formulate my own take on something. Oh, man, do they have the wrong person to say that to...and, looking at it, that's probably gone a goodish way to poisoning the very concept of that kind of discussion.

Eh. I figure that I'm as capable of saying "hey, I just finished Blah by Fishcakes, did you read that? What did you think about the so-called plot twist in chapter eleventy billion" as I am of formulating my own take on it.

Mostly, I'm simply not that curious.

Word6 format from my WordPad coming your way.

Zenkitty, when I was in middle and high school, and writing my "stories" in my school notebooks, my mother told me I was "wasting" paper and ink. It took me literally decades to get over that, and to feel it was okay to "waste" not only time but paper--and not only paper, but to actually buy special notebooks to write in, and bottles of ink in special colors just for writing.

You know, one of the things I mentioned in my year-in-review post is that I wrote very, very little this year. Part of that was, I think, my class, where I started to feel like I *had* to produce something every week -- which is pressure that came entirely from me, not the class.

But another part of it is that my instruments of writing are just as important to me as what I write. There was a time when, if I couldn't use my computer, I just wouldn't write.

Now I'm feeling like the computer is very sterile, and my pretty, fancy journals (one has Catwoman on the cover!) are too....high expectations, I guess. Like, I *must* write something faaaaaabulous in it.

I think I'm going to buy a plain old school notebook, spiral-bound, or maybe a composition book with the black-and-white cover, and a blue Bic ballpoint pen, and see if that loosens up any writing. Because I *hate* not writing.

Steph, yes! I have all these pretty fancy blank notebooks that I wrote for writing, and I can't write a word in them. I feel that I'll just mess them up! I do best with a plain notebook that I can fit in my bag.

Well, I used my pretty, fancy journals for class, but I think I am going to get a school notebook tomorrow for plain old brain dump writing. Gotta start with the basics.

I have all these pretty fancy blank notebooks that I wrote for writing, and I can't write a word in them

Wrod. I can't write stuff that will be transcribed into the computer as soon as possible in a journal apparently designed to be saved for a while. I guess some folks have different ideas of what a casual notebook is. Yay, Mead, for producing grundel-loads of cheap notebooks.

I like white, college-ruled legal pads. I get weird about pretty little journals, too, and I always try to make them for something specific, like only for ideas about one particular project, but it never works and I wind up writing grocery lists and odd snatches of other things, too.

Connie, did you get my return e? I couldn't open the file because for some reason my computer can't "find" Notepad. No idea what that's about.

I love sturdy spiral-bound notebooks, but they must be college-ruled. I do almost all my rough drafts in them, and probably go through ten or more a year. Somehow they free my brain in a way the keyboard doesn't.