Book Bling-Elizabeth Alsobrooks

#IWSG Vamping the Dead

8/3/2016

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officiallyInsecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time. Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post.

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG

And we’re revving up IWSG Day to make it more fun and interactive! Every month, we'll announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

AUGUST 3RD QUESTION: What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?

The awesome co-hosts for the August 3 posting of the IWSG will be Tamara Narayan, Tonja Drecker, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Lauren @ Pensuasion, Stephen Tremp, and Julie Flanders!

The first thing I ever wrote as an aspiring adult writer was an historical vampire romance, set at the court of Peter the Great. I wrote it decades ago. I researched it, and wrote the entire thing first on a typewriter and then on my first computer, that actually crashed because the hard drive couldn't take the amount of "data" I had input during a 16-hour writing session. Oh, times and technology they sure have changed.

I was speaking to a young sales girl the other day in a store and she didn't know what a dot matrix printer was and didn't understand how there ever could have been a single computer so large when I first studied computer science that it took up a whole room that had to be air conditioned year round in Michigan to keep it cooled off. And they wonder why updating our websites drive us old "geezers" who know nothing about computer technology crazy? Perhaps young people forget that we've learned a whole lot "more" technology in our lifetimes than has yet to be invented in theirs....

15 Comments

Lynda R Young link

8/3/2016 09:15:49 pm

Ah, dot matrix printers. I remember them well...

ELizabeth Alsobrooks

8/4/2016 01:06:45 am

It's the sound that will live on in our memories forever, I fear....LOL!

Stephen Tremp

8/3/2016 11:03:58 pm

I was born and raised in Michigan so I do appreciate the reference as I recently came back from a vacation there. Yes, that's right. I live in So. Cal close to the beach and I still vacation in Michigan.

Stephen Tremp
IWSG Co-Host August 2016
www.stephentremp.com

Elizabeth Alsobrooks

8/4/2016 01:10:05 am

I moved to sunny AZ when I retired, Stephen, so most of my family, including my kids and their spouses, still live in MI so I still get back there. Then, too, they like to visit AZ in the winter so they can go home with a tan while everyone else is shoveling...

Ellen

8/4/2016 07:05:38 am

Oh you're bringing back memories! I remember dot matrix printers very well. I guess that dates me :-)

Elizabeth Alsobrooks

8/5/2016 03:47:35 pm

I realized I was dated when I walked into a "museum" and I felt like I was in my basement...

E. E. Giorgi link

8/4/2016 07:17:49 am

I still remember my dad's first Mac computer, LOL ... it's nice to have those memories, and you think about it, things have changed pretty darn fast :-)

Elizabeth Alsobrooks

8/5/2016 03:46:30 pm

Keeping up one download at a time!

Alex J. Cavanaugh link

8/4/2016 01:31:46 pm

I remember dot matrix printers. They were still in use even twenty years ago. I also remember the only way to fix a mistake was with White Out.

Elizabeth Alsobrooks

8/5/2016 03:48:37 pm

LOL! I had green out, and even orange out...love those forms!

Crystal Collier link

8/5/2016 11:50:35 am

Goodness, I hear you on the old tech. My dad was the first person on our street to own a computer, and I totally remember loading from Dos and having the type in the load command manually for an program. Fun times. Still, that would kill me--16 hours lost? Whew! It sounds like an epic story.

Elizabeth Alsobrooks

8/5/2016 03:52:25 pm

Oh, Crystal! Loading from Dos?! Do I ever remember that?! LOL! Now that does bring back memories. And yes, seeing a computer crash and burn due to text data overload just brings looks of incredulous confusion on the faces of folks these days. Losing 16 hours of caffeinated muses-flowing writing though...that brings horror to writers of every generation! I still remember the exhausted tears... Computer guys managed to bring back fragments.

Diane Burton

8/6/2016 12:48:58 pm

Dot matrix? LOL Made me think of Space Balls. But I do remember those clunky printers. I agree, we oldsters have learned more techno stuff than a youngster will ever know.

Christopher D Votey link

8/6/2016 02:14:54 pm

I do remember dot matrix as a kid, but they are still in use. I used to do repairs at Super Markets in Arizona, and the back area used dummy terminals hooked to a server. These terminals were the green and black kind of monitors, with a dot matrix printer. I had to repair these in additional to many other things one might see (and not see) in a supermarket. And this was in 2010.

Tyrean Martinson link

8/11/2016 05:10:40 pm

Oh yes, dot matrix printers, and actual floppy disks. My kids have asked me several times why the save button is a funny square box thing . . . the floppy disk symbol. Oy. And, they wonder why I can't memorize all the symbols on my phone.