This is an ongoing series about BigAl’s first experience writing a book. Join him as he flies by the seat of his pants and figures things out as he goes. For a more complete explanation about the book and this series of posts, you can read the series introduction here.
In this installment I’m going to briefly cover two areas. First, establish my starting point. Second, report on some non-writing activity I’ve done.
The Benchmark
In the introduction I indicated that I’d previously started work on this book and then stalled due to other distractions. It seems reasonable to report on from what point I’m re-starting and a bit about how I got to that point.
It’s really nice to have support when I write. My entire body supports me. My spine keeps me upright in my chair. My butt anchors me there (sometimes too long), and of course my hands and eyes connect me to my computer via the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Obviously, I could not write without the aid of my body, but sometimes it takes that support too far and ends up causing me trouble with typos. How so?
First it’s my fingers. They’re very helpful. I should provide a little backstory and say that I learned to touch type in high school — home row, QWERTY, and all that. I never have to look at the keyboard to type, just keep my eyes trained on the screen and go. Because of that, I type fast, and my fingers know whole words after so much repetition. I rarely have to think about typing H-E-A-D, I just think about head and my fingers do the rest. 
In this snippet of overheard conversation, the Mentor runs the Student Writer through the process of using