iPhone junkie unplugged... It's not pretty

A month ago, I left my phone in D.C. It came home in this package.

I am an iPhone junkie.

Everyone around me knows it. I have never denied it. Earlier this summer, I left my iPhone 4 on my friend’s bookshelf in D.C. where it was charging. He mailed it to me, but since I left on a Thursday and the phone arrived on Monday afternoon, that meant five days without my phone. 

Monday, while cleaning the bathroom, my iPhone slipped from my pocket and went for a brief swim. As it fell, I reached out to catch it but it was too late. Submerged in water for about seven seconds, the time and my home screen flashed at me briefly before it powered down. I sealed it inside a plastic bag of whole grain brown rice. I'm told I can't touch it for a week. A week!

That was about 50 hours ago. I find it’s not the Facebook or the Instagram I miss as badly as the lack of information. When my husband mocked me for not knowing a 1980s cartoon monkey, there would be no YouTube search. No news makes it into my house. My favorite news sources’ tweets fall upon other ears. No texts from my father. No Facebook messages from work colleagues pushed to the forefront to let me know that extra shifts are mine for the claiming.

No impromptu photography of the ridiculous things my daughter does. No blogging of the meals we eat day-to-day for my recipe blog, www.angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com. My email is limited, as we don’t really have internet in the house. Those job listings I find via the Indeed app each morning... Those are far away. No pedometer to tell me how far I’ve walked or where I walked it.

It’s hard to check my bank balance, especially since I have several accounts at two different banks all of which are more or less empty. When I went to Target to buy my grandmother a new nightgown, I couldn’t use Cartwheel. Read a book? Listen to music? Nope, can’t do that, either. No maps. No easy access to my calendar, phone numbers or addresses. No GPS to tell me where I am. No apps to help me find the nearest bike path or public transports. I can’t even buy a train ticket. 

I’ve been told I can do things via my phone that some people haven’t mastered on their computers. I edited press releases via the Pages app, share them as Word docs and save them to Google Drive or simply email them. I keep PDFs of my resume, favorite samples, portfolio and recent newsletters that I can distribute with a touch of my finger. 

My Instagram followers and Facebook friends may think I’m dead. In a way, I am. I am using my circa 2009 Nokia flip-phone that I gave my husband after his phone went through the washing machine. The kind people who answered at my carrier’s customer service line have forwarded my calls to his line. But that leaves us one phone. For a family of three. And no landline. My daughter doesn’t even remember when we had a “house phone.” Answering machines are alien technology.

The ring tone of my ancient phone is Cake’s “No Phone.” The lyrics remind me, “No Phone. No Phone. I just want to be alone today.” I loaded it as a joke back-in-the-day when I was a newspaper reporter. In the days before iPhones, Twitter and Facebook.

But, hey, the old Nokia has a car charger.

This essay also appears on www.angelackerman.com

Two weeks

I have faced this still blog for two weeks, the automatic calendar item on my iPhone reminding me to write. I have ignored it. But today I could no longer ignore it.

I have written about 400 words in Courting Apparitions since school began. I have also written in my journal. I also wrote a 900-word essay on perceptions of North Africa today and the remnants of colonialism and imperialism.

I have edited for clients.

I have read Edward Said and textbooks.

I finally started Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games, while my husband reads Mockingjay, the final volume. Suzanne Collins rocks.

I have met with my critique group and "felt" problems with my pacing.

So, all of this non-creative writing activity has left me with time to organize my plot weaknesses and improve those pace problems. Even if merely in my head.

I hear a major publisher has opened up temporarily to queries from unrepresented authors, unsolicited manuscripts. I'm tempted. But part of me is less than thrilled.

I'm torn right now, because I want to write, but I also want to do a lot of other things-- like read. I can absolutely be the disciplined writer. It's hard for me not to write. But after this summer... my struggles with anemia and finally regaining my strength, I'm not sure how hard would be proper to push myself.

That is today's question: How hard should a writer push? Are those self-imposed deadlines and goals really the key to success?

I don't know, but Suzanne Collins is looking might attractive right now.

The iPhone Cure

After my house guest left last night, and I couldn't bring myself to end my recent streak with writers block, I read most of "The Education of Madeline," a western historical romance thanks to the daily book snippets emailed to me via Suzanne at "Dear Reader" book clubs.

I enjoyed it, and it had a bit of unsuspected intrigue. By the end, I was tired of all the attempts to have "different" sex. The premise was a spinster asks someone to educate her in intimate matters, and they fall in love. (My problem was that nothing her tutor suggested ended up making her uncomfortable. In any way, physical or emotional. But anyway...)

So after finishing that and enjoying the rain storm, I found myself inspired but I was away from all the computers and didn't feel like searching out a pen/paper. I used my iPhone to write a few random paragraphs, and although they didn't fit any of my projects, they felt good.

Now I want to write more, but what?