Nanowrimo: Day 15

So, I think I'll knock off for the evening now. My word count is up to 28,433, which isn't too shabby. About a 3,000 word increase over yesterday.

Today was one of the hardest for me. Food coma, distractions, and apathy certainly contributed, but the hardest part about today was this one section I was typing. It just would not come as easily as the other sections had -- things just weren't coming together, I wasn't sure where the story was going, etc.

But fortunately things turned around. The last section I worked on flowed more smoothly. I think I may have found my character's "voice" . . . too early to tell, but I feel good. Hey, I'll take what I can get. Oops, well the laptop's battery is getting low, so I'll shutdown now and charge it up.

Hope things are going well for all you Nano'ers out there. Hang in there, it's half over already. Hmmm. I just realized that some of you might not find that so comforting. If that's you, sorry. :)

Just keep plugging away, folks!

My Buddy, My Buddy ... the Kensington SlimBlade Trackball Mouse (Bluetooth edition)

Wouldn't you agree, Amazon SuperSaver Shipping can be a marvelous thing?

I just got the Bluetooth mouse I ordered for my MacBook about 4 days ahead of schedule. Sweet. And what a sweet Bluetooth mouse/trackball it is -- I think I've finally found the input device of my dreams.

For the longest time I've been looking for “Input Device Nirvana” . . . that sweet, elusive combination of portable convenience and functionality that I believed could only be found in a Bluetooth mouse. But the path to fulfillment was a harsh road fraught with trials and disappointment. (Sigh)

Why Bluetooth? Well, it was supposed to be the wireless standard for input devices -- the one interface from which many devices could conveniently and easily operate. Mice, trackballs, headsets, keyboards, etc. It was supposed to do for wireless input devices what USB did for wired devices, in theory anyway. But we all remember what a bumpy road USB was in the beginning, right? Well, Bluetooth has been even rockier.

The path to Bluetooth-ubiquity has been paved with sloppy execution and inconsistent implementation. Aside from Macs, how many OEMs of Windows laptops and desktops include Bluetooth? On top of that, how many different implementations / stacks are there? Have you tried to get Bluetooth to work properly in Win XP? Don't even get me started on the unholy mess that is Bluetooth on Vista. (Arghhh!) It's no wonder that peripheral manufacturers have turned to sundry, bespoke RF interfaces.

But, Macs have basically had Bluetooth since its inception and they've kept it. The only problem has been finding a good, portable Bluetooth mouse. Don't get me wrong, there are more than a handful of Bluetooth mice out there, but they have all been either too large (not portable enough), too small (not ergonomic enough), or too short-sighted in design (what? no way to turn off the mouse?) While hope sprang eternal, in the meantime I had to suffer with my Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse, which was okay but not really perfect.

And then, I stumbled upon the Kensington SlimBlade Trackball Mouse, Bluetooth edition, and all was right in the universe. Finally, it looked like there was a mouse that: was Bluetooth-enabled; had an off switch; was neither too big, nor too small; and as a bonus, could operate as a mouse, or as a trackball. Sweet! I couldn't believe it. I did a little research online and then placed my order through Amazon. As I awaited delivery, thoughts of Bluetooth happiness danced through my head.

And now that I've been able to use it, what do I think? It is simply A.W.E.S.O.M.E! It is the best; this is what I've been waiting for. Perfect fit, very comfortable in the hand. Sleek design makes it nice and portable. Love the fact that I can turn it off, toss it into my laptop bag, and not worry about the battery draining down. Takes AA batteries, excellent.

And the trackball mode? I've got to say I was a bit concerned about the placement of the trackball, relative to the buttons, and how it would feel during use. But after using it for a while now, I find it is just right. (But keep in mind, I'm one of those people who absolutely love the feeling of the Logitech trackballs mice. So I might not be the most unbiased of folks.) I really think Kensington nailed it on the head with this one.

Now, keep in mind that I'm more of a keyboard user when it comes to computing. I like keyboard shortcuts and most of the time I spend on the computer is typing-related. Which is why I was really psyched about the trackball feature: device sits still, takes up little surface area, and you just move cursor here and there when needed with little fuss. I don't do a lot of activities that require pin-point, precision motion tracking. Having said that, the sensitivity and acceleration of the Kensington SlimBlade is seems more than adequate for the occasional photo touch-up or Sims 2 session.

And did I mention it was Bluetooth? No wires. None. And no stupid dongles to take up USB port space . . . goodness knows I need every one of the 2 ports the MacBook has. (Oh, and for those of you without Bluetooth, there is an RF version of the SlimBlade with USB dongle. Shudder.)

So, do I recommend the Kensington SlimBlade? You betcha . . . two thumbs up . . . it's all that and a bag o' chips, etc!

In search of . . . a good desktop blog editor [UPDATE]

So, I've been searching for a good Mac desktop blog editor, one that I can use to edit posts offline and then upload them, etc. While there are a number of choices available, nothing really stands out as a clear winner. In fact, of all the editors I have tried, there is always something wrong or missing about them.

MarsEdit looked like a good candidate -- good set of features, good looking, good integration. But for some reason, MarsEdit couldn't find the draft posts I had created through my blog's online editor and I couldn't find a way to alter the date and timestamp via the blog post editor.

Ecto found the draft posts without problem, but for some reason once it found it, it would never remove it from the list, even after I had deleted the post. It also refused to retitle an entry after I had renamed it. Granted it was a version 3 beta, but that was a deal killer as well. Also, I've got to say I'm not loving the interface or UI.

My hitherto favorite, the ScribeFire/Performancing extension/add-on to Firefox/Mozilla browsers was having troubles with my Blogger + custom domain + FeedBurner blog, such that it couldn't post entries. I think it was because it had replaced the Blogger feed automatically with the FeedBurner feed and was trying to use it that address for posting. I'll check back on it later to see if they've fixed the problem.

Right now, I'm trying out the Flock browser and its built-in blog editor features. I love the idea behind the Flock browser and I'm happy to see they've been tweaking and improving its feature set and interface. BUT (and this is a big, huge, fat caveat) I see they still haven't improved the blog editor -- all the things that annoyed me before, which resulted in me dropping Flock, still exist.

Flock's blog editor still doesn't have an intuitive or convenient method of pulling previously posted entries or drafts for editing. There should be at least a button on the toolbar, or how about having the blog button launch into a dialog window that lists all my blogs and then allows me to either select the blog I want to create an entry for or choose a previously posted entry / draft. Is that so hard?

(And to all you Flock evangelist out there trolling the blogs, "creating a post in Flock's blog editor, saving it as a local draft, and then opening it up to edit it" is not what I am talking about. That doesn't count. I want to pull any post from any of my blog easily and conveniently, whether they were created in Flock or not, and then edit them.)

Why hide the feature and make me go "choose Recent Blog Posts from the File menu" as Flock's help so kindly explains? (An option which, I might add, is actually missing from my version of the browser.)

Are these conscious decisions regarding the UI and feature set, or is blogging usability an afterthought in Flock's development roadmap? It makes me wonder if anyone there has ever actually used the blog editor, I mean REALLY used it, for day-to-day blogging . . . for more than just posting one-off, new entries or on more than just one blog.

And while I'm griping, where is the built-in spellchecker? If it's there as a feature for browsing, why isn't it in the blog editor, which is an arguably more important place for the feature? Also, why is there an annoying lag in the blog editor every 30 seconds or so? The whole herky-jerky typing thing gets old fast. Maybe all these things are in their release notes or on the bug list, but even so at a 1.0.1 version the usability issues should have been taken care of by now. It's a shame really, because Flock has a great number of compelling features that are well integrated for the most part. I love their media bar (for surfing photostreams,) integrated photo uploader, and their web clipboard features.

I dunno, maybe I just do things a little differently from everybody else. Sure I use a Mac now, but I switched after decades of using Windows and Linux, and there are still things just annoy me about the Mac UI and paradigm to computing. So maybe it's just me.

Wow, did I really write that much about Flock? Guess I had something to get off my chest. To be fair, for the price, Flock is a great application. I guess I just had high hopes that were not met, which just means even greater disappointment. Maybe in future versions, things will be sorted out. I hope so, but I really think they need to seriously reassess their blog editor.

[UPDATE]

Okay, after choosing to Publish this post, I am then presented with the option to "Publish as a new post" or "Replace existing post" -- so to clarify, you can "replace" an existing post with a newer post.

But I still see no way of selecting and editing a previously posted entry, rather than merely replace. To me, that is only half a blogging editor. (BTW, I had to use Blogger's online editor to edit this post. Natch.)

[UPDATE]

Oh, another clarification.

Flock does allow you to edit previously posted entries . . . sort of. The caveat here is, and it's a HUGE one, is that the so-called previous posts it allows you to edit, are in fact, only locally cached copies of prior entries created in, and then posted from, Flock.

This means that any changes you have made to the post, either through a blog's online editor, or via another desktop blog editor, will not appear in Flock. Nor is there any conceivable means of grabbing that updated entry via Flock's blogging features, save the inelegant but always available means of cut-and-paste. So if you ever only blog with and from Flock's editor, you're golden. But if you ever edit or post your entries by any other means, then you're out of luck.

If you're not convinced, then create an entry in Flock, post it, and then edit it via your blog's online editor and save. Then try to pull that updated entry for editing within Flock's blog editor. If you can figure it out, then let me know.

Otherwise, I suppose Flock might be useful for creating first drafts of entries, with final edits and polishes done through a blog's online editor.

What I've learned from Nanowrimo about the writing process

So, with all the writing I've been doing during Nanowrimo, I've given some thought into the nature of the creative process, or more specifically, the writing process.

If, as some people insist, there is no single “right” way to do things, that would mean that conversely there is no “wrong” way to do things either. Perhaps that's true, but I think it's safe to say that there are definitely less “efficient” ways of doing things.

For example, I've found it counter-productive to think you have to get it right the first time. And trying to create something that way, well it can be a horribly frustrating way to waste time. Which is why I think Nanowrimo is simply brilliant.

Writing a novel of 50,000 words in a single month's time is definitely doable, but not if you waste time. You have to step lively and not get bogged down in the details; just keep on rolling, don't over edit (better yet, don't edit at all) and don't over think. Bang out a novel as if it were a rough draft. Or even better, think of it as a stream-of-consciousness ramble-fest. Just get it down, and edit it later . . . much later.

After all, it's not as if writing is fundamentally different than other creative processes. We shouldn't expect the work to spring forth as a fully-formed, final draft from the writer's head, like Athena from Zeus' forehead. Right?

I mean, no one really thinks a painter simply sits down at a blank canvas and paints a masterpiece without doing some sketches or studies first, right? And we can't honestly think sculptors just plop themselves in front of a block of marble and chisel out a statue without a bit of planning and modeling in clay first, right? (Well, Bob “Happy Trees” Ross and Michelangelo aside.)

No, the best results often come from planning, experimenting, making mistakes, and making improvements incrementally over time. And that is a process -- meaning it takes time, patience, and many, many tiny steps before perfection, or something close enough, is achieved.

So, my approach to Nanowrimo and writing my novel is simply this: (i) write often and write a lot; (ii) then go back and write some more; (iii) until there is enough to start editing -- snipping a bit here, adding a bit more there, and moving stuff around until it seems right.

Somewhere along the way, I know I'll hit the 50,000 word count goal; of that I have no doubt. All I need to do for Nanowrimo sake, is to do it before the month is up. And that's all there is to that. :)

Nanowrimo: Day 11

Had a good dinner at Buffet Dynasty. Yummy! And of course, good food is always best with good company. I enjoyed chatting with fellow writing group member, Allen. Unfortunately, the other members couldn't make it for dinner, although one did drop by for a bit on the way to another obligation.

I must say that Nanowrimo is not so bad when you have company. When you have writing buddies with whom to encourage, and compete, the words just seem to fly by. The competing thing especially helps. I find that I check the "writing buddies" tab on my Nano profile a wee bit too much. Whatever works, right?

Anyway, while I might write a bit more before the evening is through, I'm gonna call tonight's word count at 18,638. Not too shabby, I must say. Almost an additional 2,000 words since last.

Nanowrimo: Day 09

So, I finally hit the 15k word mark today, which those of you mathematically-inclined (or with access to calculators) know means that I am 30% of the way to the Nanowrimo goal of 50k words. Not too shabby, eh? For those of you keeping count, my current word count is 15,619.

For all you fellow Nanowrimo-ers out there, good luck and keep it up!

Nanowrimo: Day 08

Not a very productive day in terms of additional word count -- zero for today -- so I'll just have to coast by on my gains from yesterday. That mean I'm currently at 12,310 words.

But I did have some thoughts and insights into enriching the story and possibly setting the ground work for future sequel and/or prequels. Can you say trilogy?

Nanowrimo: Day 05

Did some catching up today . . . or is that just less falling behind? My word count is at 5,698. Eh, no worries. I should have no problem catching up tomorrow.

A couple of things I've learned. First, don't put off writing into the evening, because there are way too many distraction. Dinner time, prime time, family time . . . you get the idea.

Second, don't get too focused on quantity versus quality. Sure, the point is to hit a 50k word count by the end of the month, but it does no good if you end up with nothing but gibberish. Then again, you don't want to take forever on what is inevitably going to be one of many drafts with plenty of future revisions. I guess the best course is to take some time to plan what to write and then try to stick to it, while executing it in a timely fashion.

Third, don't censor ideas and edit too much. Now this might seem counter to the last point about not just spewing for the sake of driving up the numbers, but there is actually another good reason. If you can't take a lot of time to sift through the chaff to find the wheat, then mill it into flour, then knead it into dough, then let it rise, and then bake it into a nice loaf of bread . . . then at least make sure you get as much wheat as you can. The idea is not to throw the baby out with the bath water -- just type and keep what you get. Everything. That way, you don't lose any diamonds in the rough which you can better find and polish up later. (Okay, enough with the hackneyed phrases.)

Oh, and fourth, don't forget the writing music. Music that is good for reading, is usually good for writing as well. While I have lots of good musics from various albums I've collected over the years, I decided to treat myself to a new CD for this year's Nanowrimo -- "for Book Lovers" by Decca. Cheesy title, yup. Cheesy cover, affirmative. Good music, most definitely.

Anyhoo, this entry was supposed to be short, but got a bit long-winded. Gee, if only I spent as much time typing my novel as I did my blog posts. Hmmm . . . .

Nanowrimo: Day 04

Well, as of today, the word count is at 4,355.

Unfortunately, I've fallen behind a bit thanks to a bout of food poisoning yesterday, which resulted in no typing whatsoever on Saturday, Day 03.

That's okay. Not much I can do about it now. I'm not really worried too much, since I had figured I would take at least one day off per week. It was just ahead of schedule, that's all. Anyway, I'm feeling fine now and I'm ready to go.

It's good to see that for the most part my writing buddies are doing well. In fact, I find myself playing catch up quite a bit. It's good motivation, such friendly competition.

Nanowrimo: Day 02

Okay, I've decided to knock off for this, the second day of Nanowrimo. My word count is now 3,489.

I got a lot done today; I made up some ground and I got caught up. Granted, my actual goal is to be typing around 2,000 words per day, for 25 days of typing. (I figure it's better to build in a buffer with a few days off, just in case.) Actually, truth be told, I should be to typing at least 3,000 words a day, if I want to write 75,000 words in 25 days.

Why 75,000 rather than 50,000? Well, I would like for the finished novel to be 300 pages in length. At an average of 250 words per page, that means a total of 75,000 words. But even if I just aim for 50k or 60k, the reality is that I'm more likely to add to, rather than take away from, the novel's total word count with the subsequent revisions . . . at least initially. So I suppose there's no point in going overboard now.

Anyway, in the end it's all rather arbitrary, since the novel will be whatever length it will be, and should be. No more, no less.

Testing desktop blogging apps

Surprising there aren't too many good desktop blogging apps out there. Most of the best ones (at least commercial ones) have been for the Windows platform. Most of the Mac ones are really not that good.

But perhaps I'm guilty of being too harsh, too hasty, or not thorough enough. I'm gonna make an active effort to find a decent desktop blogging app for my Mac. (Preferably the most full-featured, cheapest one available.)

And the sooner I find one the better, because I think we can all agree that Blogger's web-based posting editor sucks in a major way.

Let slip the hounds of typing!

So, today is the first day of Nanowrimo and I've done only 1,577 words (or 1,578 depending on which word processor I use.) A little off the pace I suppose, but at least I started. 

I'm pretty happy with the progress so far. I'm not really worried about hitting my word count goals. Nor am I worried about hitting the 50k total word mark. My big question is what how efficient will I be?

Should I just type like the wind and spew stuff down as quickly as possible? Or should I take a wee bit longer (and thus be a wee bit slower) and try to write it better, the first time around? 

I know there is a point at which I'll get diminishing returns and just waste too much time for Nanowrimo purposes, but I don't just want a novel out of this. I want a good novel, and I don't want to waste a lot of time. Or more precisely, I want to write this novel the right way. 

Perhaps Nanowrimo is not the best vehicle for producing my novel -- one I hope to have published someday soon. But I think I might be tempted to waste too much time otherwise, without the Nanowrimo induced timeframe. 

I guess we'll see. The truth is that I didn't really spend all that much actual time writing today -- and the beginning can be the hardest part -- so all in all, I'm pretty happy. Now all I have to do, is keep the momentum going.