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Monday, August 22nd.
Aug. 22nd, 2011 12:20 pmNews For Today
Couple of things went really, really right this weekend. I see good things happening this week on the writing front, but I don't want to jinx them yet. I'll be sketching out my plans in this space tomorrow if today goes the way it should.
One thing that went right: earlier this year when I had to replace my phone, I wasn't able to get one with a QWERTY keyboard for free. I've never quite been able to get the hang of writing on the touchscreen keyboard of the new one. Typing, yes. Writing, no.
Ever since before I started Tales of MU, I've used my phone (a Palm Treo back then) as a writing device, to help me get stories started or get them moving again when I get stuck. It's a combination of factors: the ability to move around a room while I'm writing (I do some of my best brainstorming and composing in motion), the lack of ample distractions... even the fact that I can't type quite as fast helps. When a story is well and truly flowing I want to be at a full-sized keyboard and a full sized-screen, but when it isn't using a smaller keyboard and typing at a more deliberate pace sort of focuses me and offsets the feeling that I'm writing through molasses.
When I got the Kindle, I had the thought that it could take over those duties. Its keyboard is a bit more awkward than I'd aim for, but definitely workable. I can still thumb-peck out words faster than a lot of people can touch-type on a full-sized keyboard. But somehow... possibly because of the awkwardness, possibly because I don't actually carry it around like a phone... I just never got in the habit of writing on it. It never caught fire with me, or vice-versa.
Then I found myself in the bath yesterday, where I'd planned on reading a PDF of a book that someone gave me to blurb, and realized that I'd forgotten to actually transfer the file over.
(Sidenote: I have a very high tech and technical solution for using the Kindle in the bath; it involves a quart-sized Ziploc bag. When I first got the thing I was really paranoid and would put two bags over it, with the zip-ends alternating up and down. Months and months without mishaps have convinced me that one is enough.)
So, I'm like... okay, what now? I didn't really fancy going back upstairs and sitting down at the computer dripping wet to get the file. So I was looking at what else I had on it to see what to re-read and I spot the notepad application.
And this was the first moment when it hit me that if I could write on my Kindle and I could read on the Kindle in the bath, that meant I could write in the bathtub. This is actually pretty huge, because there comes a point in most days when I spend an hour of "prep time" in the bath and it's one of my most productive idea-having locations. The problem comes in keeping the enthusiasm and energy and ideas from dissipating before I get dried off and in front of a computer.
So I decided to give the notepad a whirl. I've actually in practical terms never used this application... the writing I tried before was using Gmail and the Kindle's very limited browser interface, which may have influenced my apathy towards Kindle-writing. I bought the notepad after deciding composing in Gmail wasn't working, but I never really gave it a chance. Rather than jumping right into fiction-writing I warmed up by jotting down some ideas for a game project that were bumping around in my head, and then once I knew what I was doing I opened a new note and started writing.
(Well, first I viewed the help file to make sure that the notes were saved in an accessible format... I would expect them to just be text files that could be USB'd right off, but one should never assume. Sometimes people make programs that are one feature away from being useful. Luckily, such was not the case.)
I ended up writing ~500 words of dialogue for a story that's been eluding me for months. I was pretty much *just* writing dialogue, which is usually how I get a story going and usually what I did when I had a mobile device. I didn't think to check the time when I started but I know it was under an hour. I'd say 30-45 minutes for 500 words, which is really a lot better than I expected. I can't get a word count out of the app but it does do character count and old standby of dividing that by 5 worked out pretty close to what I got when I later copied the text into Google Docs.
The people who think writing is just banging keys and all problems with getting stories done on a timely basis come down to me being unwilling to bang keys often enough are probably rolling their eyes right now, but this is really a "this changes everything" moment. I've not only gotten a key part of my writing routine back, I've made it better. The Kindle is more awkward to type on than any of my phones but it's less awkward to grip so I can do it for longer. It's easier for me to write laying down with it. And being able to write in the bathtub is huge. I'm going to start taking a larger bag with me most places so I can have the Kindle with me in case I'm stuck waiting somewhere and the muse moves me.
Anyway, that's the news for today.
State of the Me
Pretty good.
Dreams From Last Night
None memorable.
Plans For Today
I'm going to try to sew up the story I added 500 words to yesterday and get it posted.
Couple of things went really, really right this weekend. I see good things happening this week on the writing front, but I don't want to jinx them yet. I'll be sketching out my plans in this space tomorrow if today goes the way it should.
One thing that went right: earlier this year when I had to replace my phone, I wasn't able to get one with a QWERTY keyboard for free. I've never quite been able to get the hang of writing on the touchscreen keyboard of the new one. Typing, yes. Writing, no.
Ever since before I started Tales of MU, I've used my phone (a Palm Treo back then) as a writing device, to help me get stories started or get them moving again when I get stuck. It's a combination of factors: the ability to move around a room while I'm writing (I do some of my best brainstorming and composing in motion), the lack of ample distractions... even the fact that I can't type quite as fast helps. When a story is well and truly flowing I want to be at a full-sized keyboard and a full sized-screen, but when it isn't using a smaller keyboard and typing at a more deliberate pace sort of focuses me and offsets the feeling that I'm writing through molasses.
When I got the Kindle, I had the thought that it could take over those duties. Its keyboard is a bit more awkward than I'd aim for, but definitely workable. I can still thumb-peck out words faster than a lot of people can touch-type on a full-sized keyboard. But somehow... possibly because of the awkwardness, possibly because I don't actually carry it around like a phone... I just never got in the habit of writing on it. It never caught fire with me, or vice-versa.
Then I found myself in the bath yesterday, where I'd planned on reading a PDF of a book that someone gave me to blurb, and realized that I'd forgotten to actually transfer the file over.
(Sidenote: I have a very high tech and technical solution for using the Kindle in the bath; it involves a quart-sized Ziploc bag. When I first got the thing I was really paranoid and would put two bags over it, with the zip-ends alternating up and down. Months and months without mishaps have convinced me that one is enough.)
So, I'm like... okay, what now? I didn't really fancy going back upstairs and sitting down at the computer dripping wet to get the file. So I was looking at what else I had on it to see what to re-read and I spot the notepad application.
And this was the first moment when it hit me that if I could write on my Kindle and I could read on the Kindle in the bath, that meant I could write in the bathtub. This is actually pretty huge, because there comes a point in most days when I spend an hour of "prep time" in the bath and it's one of my most productive idea-having locations. The problem comes in keeping the enthusiasm and energy and ideas from dissipating before I get dried off and in front of a computer.
So I decided to give the notepad a whirl. I've actually in practical terms never used this application... the writing I tried before was using Gmail and the Kindle's very limited browser interface, which may have influenced my apathy towards Kindle-writing. I bought the notepad after deciding composing in Gmail wasn't working, but I never really gave it a chance. Rather than jumping right into fiction-writing I warmed up by jotting down some ideas for a game project that were bumping around in my head, and then once I knew what I was doing I opened a new note and started writing.
(Well, first I viewed the help file to make sure that the notes were saved in an accessible format... I would expect them to just be text files that could be USB'd right off, but one should never assume. Sometimes people make programs that are one feature away from being useful. Luckily, such was not the case.)
I ended up writing ~500 words of dialogue for a story that's been eluding me for months. I was pretty much *just* writing dialogue, which is usually how I get a story going and usually what I did when I had a mobile device. I didn't think to check the time when I started but I know it was under an hour. I'd say 30-45 minutes for 500 words, which is really a lot better than I expected. I can't get a word count out of the app but it does do character count and old standby of dividing that by 5 worked out pretty close to what I got when I later copied the text into Google Docs.
The people who think writing is just banging keys and all problems with getting stories done on a timely basis come down to me being unwilling to bang keys often enough are probably rolling their eyes right now, but this is really a "this changes everything" moment. I've not only gotten a key part of my writing routine back, I've made it better. The Kindle is more awkward to type on than any of my phones but it's less awkward to grip so I can do it for longer. It's easier for me to write laying down with it. And being able to write in the bathtub is huge. I'm going to start taking a larger bag with me most places so I can have the Kindle with me in case I'm stuck waiting somewhere and the muse moves me.
Anyway, that's the news for today.
State of the Me
Pretty good.
Dreams From Last Night
None memorable.
Plans For Today
I'm going to try to sew up the story I added 500 words to yesterday and get it posted.