On Thursday 28 June 2018 15:04:52 deloptes wrote:
William Morder wrote:
For the present, though, I must make do with what I have at hand. I only have about $9 to spare every month, so I have to make my best guess about what will get me through the next year or so with the inkjet printer that I actually have, not one that I don't have and can't afford.
Don't you have some good friend that could print it for you? Each company can write off the material and the cost for printing, so it costs nothing. Unfort. I am too far away from you, but I would let you print if you were here around, unless you print 2000 pages at once.
Option would be also to look for used dot matrix as they are cheep and reliable. You can print there your drafts, while saving ink for the final version you would send to the publisher.
regards
This is the thread that will not die!
When I am in the throes of revision or layout, I can print out sometimes 30-50 pp. a day, and even in an average week, 100 pp. is probably about average. So, no, I don't have a good friend who will do it for free, and paying even 5 cents per page is not feasible.
Even with some other sort of writing that just flows out of me, I need to be able to see a hard copy for when I revise. My occasional non-fiction pieces for newspapers or magazines seldom run more than 1000-2000 words, and even then I like to print out for revision.
These works-in-progress contain, in parts, intricate arguments, and when I keep trying to revise on a screen, it all turns to a hopeless mush. When I have a hard copy, I can lay out the pages before me, and better see how to re-arrange and revise. (Maybe this comes from writing habits which I developed back in the days before word processors; I still remember when it was a new thing to be able to use a typewriter.) When I studied computer technology in school, we spent some weeks learning how to create programs using IBM punchcards, which we then ran through a conveyor belt, and it turned on a light bulb. That will give you some idea of what kind of dinosaur I am. If I could, I would chisel my words into stone, as it would be more gratifying as a permanent creation.
A dot matrix would be great, if I were only printing out, but I also want to use the scanner to grab illustrations from various books; books that I cannot find otherwise in libraries, and which are sometimes difficult to find even in digital sources.
It could well be that I will live to regret my choice in this matter, but then I can list it among my bad experiences, or lessons I have yet failed to learn. Anyway, the choice is made, the order has been sent, so now we can kill this thread.
Thanks for the offer of using your printer. I will immediately drop everything, and fly to wherever it is that you live (France?), in order to save myself pennies per page. (It all adds up!) However, I expect that there will be a veritable Rabelaisian orgy of food, wine, discussion of old books, and the noble herb Pantagruelion, as I cannot write without sustenance.
Bill