Mark 的个人资料HappyFunCorp照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
|
10月19日 Low tech love-inI'm off on holiday shortly and, thanks to not having written anything for the last week (I'm blaming my cold and Halo 3), I have some serious catching up to do. Fortunately I have a range of portable gadgets to choose from. The question is, which one to take?
My Dell Axims (X30h and X50v) work with my el-cheapo wireless keyboard, but that's a bit of a faff, especially on plane. My HTC Tytn doesn't have the friendliest keyboard, but the touch screen makes editing easier (although I want to be writing, not editing, damnit). My laptop's just too damn big.
So I trawled the old gadget drawer at home, dismissed my old Sony Clie NX80v as, even though it's still lovely toy, it has seen better days. My Psion Revo has a battery life of 30 minutes at the moment, so that's clearly out.
That's left me with my ancient Psion 5MX. Coming back to it after a couple of years, left me wondering why I've neglected it as a writing tool. It has a large, responsive keyboard, runs for ages on two AAs, has an emergency back-up battery and a 1Gb CF card. Being a Psion, it has tons of feeware apps, the IR link is perfect for shunting small text files around - and it has a backlit touch screen. Not bad for a machine which was originally launched a decade ago. It should prove perfect for mobile working porting text files into yWriter3 (I know I've mentioned this before - but it really, really, rocks).
Speaking of low-tech, I've just picked up a Motofone F3 for my mother-in-law. Although aimed at developing countries, it really is a fantastic bit of kit. Basically, it's a phone for making phonecalls with - a rarity in these days of mobile web, skype, IM and cameras. It looks nice, feels great, has a ridiculous amount of battery life thanks to its e-paper, rather than LCD, screen. At £25 sim-free and unlocked it's a real bargain. I'm thinking of getting one as a back-up phone, especially for hiking trips. The only downside I can find is that you can't add your own ringtones. A shame, as the stock ones sound like they were composed by my five year-old on her Early Learning Center My First Piano. 10月15日 My cold and how not to smash a child's face in.I'm off work today with a cold. I normally wouldn't let something like this get me down, but it's been been gnawing away at me for a week now and I finally felt bad enough during the night to throw up my hands and say "I quit". It's won. I've lost.
I may take this opportunity to shave my beard off. It's getting large enough to warrant it's own name and grooming kit. Definitely time to go.
In related news I successfully managed to smash Josie's face in against an RSJ last night. Why do these things always happen when to kids they're being well behaved? We'd just come home after a stroll around the park (even though I felt like death's own undercrackers, the kids still needed a run off, they're a bit like dogs, but less lickey), and I was taking her down off my shoulders in the living room - with the lights off. I didn't realise we were stood right by a cross-brace, so cue me lifting her off my shoulders and ramming her face-first into it.
At first pass I thought I'd broken her nose. Plenty of blood and puffyness but everything seemed straight. As if I weren't feeling guilty enough, she told me how it wasn't my fault between sniffs and mopping up blood. That guaranteed a guilt-ridden mug of hot chocolate before bed time. Here's how she looked a mere 60 minutes before becoming five-year-old John Merrick:
I didn't take any 'after' pictures. I felt guilty enough. I've now ingested Anadin's latest little wonders - a combination of paracetamol, aspirin and caffeine. If I perk up enough I might actually get something written. Although judging by the quality of this blog post I'd be better off wiping my arse on a piece of A4 and sending that to a publisher. 10月11日 Ugly coincidenceOK - this has happened before, but...
The novel I'm working on at the moment is turning out to be incredibly good fun to write. I'm really happy with the premise, the characters are working out brilliantly and the plot has lots of scope as it evolves*. However, I've just seen the trailer to Jumper (trailer here) and there are a few similarities. The story is different, the characters and what they can do are different but it touches on a couple of themes I'm developing. The annoying part is that it's due for release around the same time I'll be pimping the new book to the market.
It's probably just a case of the little f****r whispering in my ear. It's certainly not enough to deter me. I'll be posting some early chapter drafts soon, so hopefully you'll be able to compare what I'm working on to this film and calm me down a bit.
*I'm not a believer in outlining a book before writing. Characters have a nasty way of driving a plot in different directions. I find compromising a character's actions to confirm to the initial plot idea weakens them and, as such, the entire story. After all, stories are about the characters and their journey, not about a bunch of cool ideas. Instead I keep a conclusion in mind (i.e. where I'd like my charactrs to end up) and try to only think a couple of chapters ahead.
|
|
|
