My new, darling toy

My beloved, who is beloved for a reason, bought me a present this week, and as of this moment, this is almost the best present he's ever given me. (I was going to say "the best" until I remembered the PC he bought shortly after we got married, the same PC I used to write my first novel. I can't imagine anything that will top that, especially since I didn't think we could afford one.)

It's an Alphasmart NEO. Basically, it's a keyboard with a tiny screen. It weighs a couple of pounds (which is nothing, as far as I'm concerned), it runs on AA batteries, and it was originally designed for elementary school use. Which means it's pretty durable. It's perfect.

I've had it since Thursday, and I can already tell the difference in my productivity, because I can take it anywhere. For example, I'm typing this blog entry on it, sitting in the living room and listening (kind of) to the Red Sox game.

The screen on it is around 5" wide and 2" high, so it's not like you can see a lot of what you've done. There's something about this that frees me up--I don't know what it is. But I love it.

I've known about the Alphasmart for years--it seems as if almost every writer I know has one...and loves it, because of that portability thing. I wanted one, but I thought I couldn't type on a standard keyboard. (I generally use a natural keyboard.)

But then I started shopping for a laptop. And I figured out that I can type on a standard keyboard. In the end I didn't get the laptop--there were things about all of them that made one not quite right. Especially since all I really wanted was something I could use for writing.

Which brought me back to Alphasmart. I'm so glad it did, and I'm glad my beloved listened when I said, "I want this."

Loading the text I type is easy enough--I connect the NEO to a UBS port, open the document I want the text to go into, and hit a button. The text "types" into the document, easy enough. The other thing I like is that the letters I type are saved as I type them. When I exit a file or shut down the machine, nothing is lost.

Happy days.