The Effects of Fiction Writing on a Mac Keyboard

At the beginning of 2008, when I was getting serious about writing, I noticed a strange phenomenon. The N on my keyboard was starting to disappear. I don't have an N in my name, or in my passwords or email. It was however a letter in the name of two main characters.

Hmmm......

By June, the N was almost completely gone, along with half of the H. Not surprising I suppose, since I do sign my name a lot.

I actually wasn't paying much attention, though, since I don't look at my keyboard when writing until yesterday when I gave it to my son to research for his science project. He looks at me strangely and says, "You're missing a bunch of letters, Mom. How am I suppose to know what to type?"

Indeed, the N, the H, the C, the M and the Y are entirely gone. The E is quickly disappearing too, along with the B which now just looks like a lower case B (Hmmm, could that be the use of the name Babs??). Interestingly, the T and S are still quite readable, which you would think odds would be against.

So I used a Sharpie to write them on. Yeah. Not smart, man. Not smart. Now I have seven keys that are purple smudges (I used black, but you know how that goes...).

I look at it as a badge of honor though. That must be a lot of pages of fiction I've written!

That, or it could be the over 2000 emails my crit group has written in the last five months....

Nah.