You know, I've been wanting a laptop for a while now.

It's been one of those things that's just a little too expensive to purchase but too obvious a writing tool to ignore.

Well, first my brother sent me his old laptop. (Thanks John! And Happy B-day Bro!) And then, almost a week later, I found one that had all the capabilities I wanted for under five hundred bucks, so I grabbed it.

I was a little worried, of course, that new excuses would replace the old ones. Aw, come on. You know what I'm talking about. You go through the logic of making a major purchase--if I have a laptop I can write wherever I want, or, if I have a laptop I can squeeze in some writing time during lunch or lying in bed at night or--and you hope that they aren't just rationalizations. Too many times we convice ourselves of the necessity of a purchase to find out that the rationalizations were merely justifications.

But it didn't turn out that way at all. Last night, propped up in bed, I managed to crank out a thousand words on the new novel before I rolled over and called it a night.

And they were a thousand GOOD words.

So the answer is simple. CARRY THE THING!

I'm taking it everywhere now. I'm taking it to work. I'm taking it when I go out for coffee. I'm taking it to bed with me--well, most of the time, anyway. I think I'd have a MAJOR spouse-rebellion if I took it to bed _all_ of the time.

To make matters even better, I'm in that exciting time of the novel; the beginning. Anything can happen in the beginning. Beginnings hold promise. The story is sitting just out there, waiting to be told. Characters are starting to climb into my thoughts anxious to be heard. Villians are plotting, rubbing their hands together and bellowing their best maniacal laughter.

Yeah, it's a good time right now.

Joseph Haines, signing off from The Edge of the Abyss.