Yesterday, one of the major stops on the way home was to Staples. For pencils. Mechanical pencils with 2B "lead". I'm so happy. *squee* There really is nothing like opening up a new pack of pencils, lovingly distributing the tiny sticks of fake lead into the openings and writing out something on paper. Almost like a love affair of the inanimate sort.

Then, like love affairs, it ended when I left my precious pencils for a basement. Preparations are pretty much done at this point, so I'm hoping to start tiling the ceiling and laying down the brick baseboard today. It managed to stay dry all night, which is a good thing since it rained pretty heavily; the new gutters on the house and the vacuuming of the furnace condensation has really made a difference.

But, back to pencils. One of the things I changed when I moved to Iowa was my choice of writing utensil. For most of my life, I used pencils in my notebooks, then I switched to pens somewhere around the second time I went to college. About half of my second book of poetry is pencil and the other half is pen. The first book was entirely on the computer and the start of the third was pen but I never finished it since I didn't think people really wanted to read my poetry.

But, the pen, though pretty and purple, was leaking through the pages when I condensed my writing to both pages. I almost always carry a notebook with me. Every idea I have, I try to write down since I have more ideas that my writing rate. Story segments, programming ideas, use cases, and even gaming notes are all thrown in there. I also have a color-coded one for work, which I keep separate. if you are curious, I go through the 84-page notebook in about 3-4 months and I have a huge stack of them in a box to move.

Pencils are just part of how I work now. I switched to pens because they were purple, but I went back to my love. Actually, pencils tie into my relationship with my father too, but that's an entire different discussion.

In other news, I saw that the White Wolf's fan submission contest is back on. They don't tell you, but its about 2k words and I'm entering it again with Unspoken Darkness, an Abyssal story. If you like White Wolf stuff, entering is good.