Meet my new friend Dana

Dana is a wireless keyboard. A laptop word processor, you might say. 

You can type things into her. Grocery lists, the Bible passage you're trying to memorize, a novel. Then you hook her up to the computer and transfer what you've typed into a text file.

She's wonderful.

I first heard about Dana in an indirect way. Barbara Frank introduced me to Neo, Dana's sibling. Or cousin, maybe. I thought that was interesting but not really relevant to me. But then came NaNoWriMo. My kids and I are going to write our own novels next month. Exciting!

But we are three people who share one computer. Please. Tell me how we can each spend an hour-plus each day writing with only one computer, unless one of us (me) does all the writing in the middle of the night.  The boy said he would write his out on paper, but really, how long will that last?   And at some point it has to be typed up anyway. 

Then I remembered Neo, and started looking around. Being broke cheap frugal, I was searching for a  bargain, and found one on Ebay.  I think Dana had belonged to a school and was being replaced.  There were quite a few available. 

Of course now the kids and I are fighting over Dana.  No one wants to use the "big computer."  And there are still three of us sharing two keyboards.  I'm toying with the idea of another Dana, but then the kids will claim both of them and I'll just have the stodgy old desktop.  Who wants to use that?  Sometimes I get the feeling we are the only people left on earth who use a desktop and don't have a laptop for each member of the family.

Maybe I'll just have to buy three. I can picture the three of us looking oh-so-authorly, hanging out and writing together in a coffee shop. Or out at our favorite arboretum.

Who wouldn't find inspiration here?

If the seminarian came along, he could bring his laptop.  See, we do have one.

One of the nice things about Dana is the lack of distraction.  There is no internet, so in the middle of writing, I can't say "oh, I need to look that up."  I can't see that I just got email.  I can't decide to take a break and go check my reader to see if there's a blog post I must read now.  It's just Dana, me, and the written word.

Don't you want a Dana of your own?

I'm linking up to Works for me Wednesday because even though NaNoWriMo hasn't started yet, Dana works for me.

UPDATE: I just found another Dana on Ebay.  So each child will have his and her own to use.  If we do any writing in a cafe or park, I'll just have to use actual paper and pen!