LETTER OF THE MONTH
Dear Keith,
I have always liked your writing but I need to know what it was like when you started. What was your office setup? I think this will help me understand what it takes to be a professional writer. I am specifically interested in what equipment you used when you started.
Signed,
A beginning writer
Dear A beginning,
You do realize that the equipment has nothing to do with your writing, don’t you? They used to chicken scratch with quill pens on parchment, right? Still, I will show you the humble beginnings of my office but I doubt any of it will help you.
That is an all metal Kaypro II computer with a 9 inch green phosphorous monochrome display that I used for 12 years and damn near burned my retinas out. It had dual floppy disc drives and the best keyboard I have ever used, bar none. This computer weighed 27 pounds but was “portable” in that it could fit under an airplane seat. There is also a dot matrix printer, a box of 5 ¼ inch floppy discs on top of a hollow core door laid on top of file cabinets. My “bookcase” was atop a block of wood. Aside from the picture of my dog on the desk, the poster of motorcycles on my wall was the only decoration, but I suggest you get something more motivational, perhaps a cat hanging from a bar that says, Hang In There. The chair was usable but not great, although I could lean back which made me look like a real thinker to those passing by. My window looked out onto a driveway, not very inspiring, but then again it was never a distraction to my work. I wrote books, screenplays and teleplays on that computer. I still have it as a matter of fact. But again, none of this is pertinent to you becoming a writer, unless your office happens to have cheap fake wood paneling and a window that looks out onto a driveway. Heck, then you’re in like Flint.
February 3, 2026
A very attractive neighbour came over to “borrow a cup of sugar”. It was such a trope I had to wonder if it wasn’t a euphemism for something else. Sugar, you say? She claimed she was baking a pie and ran out. Uh huh. She couldn’t go to the store because her car wouldn’t start. You don’t say. One more cup ought to do it. I see. I write movies and I can certainly recognize a meet-cute scenario. Was she really after sugar or something else?
Two hours later my suspicions were confirmed when she came over with a piece of pie for me. Ah ha, another meet-cute trope! Feed him and he’ll love you forever! I dunno, maybe I had too much coffee this morning.
February 4, 2026
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Because of the incontinent orange gasbag
America is swirling down his fetid gold toilet
Flush him
February 5, 2026
I pulled off a coup this morning, puff puff. Of course, I can’t tell you what I did, how I did it or who the coup was against, but it was magnificent and worthy and so very very clever and good. Those who were couped would probably say it was underhanded, foul and borderline criminal, but what do they know, they’re the losers. Cry babies, eh.
