True and Fictional Tales

Whoo hoo! My Alphasmart 3000 arrived in the mail last Saturday. All week I've wondered if I really needed it, would use it, or if it would be another tool that I'd buy and avoid. Online, it's transparent blue design makes it look like a cheap child's toy. I wasn't really sure it was going to be of any use.

Now that I have it, I can say...yes! It's the perfect tool for me. Okay, it still looks like a child's toy to me. I'd love to get my hands on a Neo simply for the design. But otherwise, I'm very happy. Unlike the laptop, it took less than a second to turn on and go straight to the file I wanted. I can take it anywhere without feeling like I have to be careful not to break it. Unlike writing with a pen, I could type fast, delete if I wanted and not waste paper in the process. When I was ready, I plugged the USB cord between laptop and Alphasmart, transferred the document to my OpenOffice program in seconds.

After I finally got it back from my 12 year old -- who wanted to try it and then ended up writing a long story of her own and now wants one too -- I wrote every chance I had over the weekend. Wrote nearly half a chapter while relaxing in bed. Something that has been difficult to do these days. I love that it doesn't have the internet to distract me. I'm forever thinking I need to research something while writing on the laptop.

The only thing I don't like is there is no delete button. Only backspace, but that's good enough. Maybe they have delete on the newer models.

All in all, I'm very happy with my Alphasmart. It's the perfect tool to get out that 1st draft with minor editing. As for a 2nd, 3rd draft and so on, that's for my laptop to handle.