Category: Writing

Best Laptop for Writers?

Good luck. I have not found one yet. A Google search will bring up dozens of websites that rate laptops, but all of them are making money off your clicks. Few of them even attempt to answer the question. They rate laptops on speed, hard drive access, software, CPU speed and screen brightness. Most anything they recommend have links they earn money off of, and the laptops can pretty much do everything from type a letter to launch a rocket to the moons of Jupiter.

Not what I want.

I’m a desktop guy, because I have more freedom in keyboard selection and other items. But often a writer needs to be outside, in a park, at the beach, in the mountains or a crowded cafe. We sometimes need external stimulus to light our creativity. I tried hauling my desktop and 22 inch monitor to a coffee shop but there weren’t enough electrical outlets for my setup. And the baristas kept tripping over my cables.

For me, what I need in a laptop for writers is the following:

  • A very comfortable keyboard. Large enough, the setup sensible, the touch of the keys just right, and no extra number keypad. I rarely run excel routines when writing a poem or short fiction, so I don’t need that. The keyboard has to feel good. For typing.
  • Enough power to run Word or similar office writing software.

That’s it. I don’t need a 15 GB solid state drive. I don’t need 32 GB of memory. I don’t need a $1,600 state of the art motherboard.

The key is indeed the keyboard. And since laptops today are designed to be used by writers, lawyers, astronauts, senators, business people, military intelligence officers and whatnot, laptops are designed to do EVERYTHING. And their keyboard is designed that way too.

I would love to find a simple basic laptop with a great keyboard for writers. Not gonna do math. Not gonna mail merge a thousand forms. Not gonna do photo processing or art. I just want to write. Keyboard is the key for me.

Yes, I can hook up a separate keyboard, but that sort of defeats the goal of having a light and easy to carry laptop. Don’t want to have to drag accessories about.

I’ll keep looking.  If you have one you like, leave a comment and I’ll check it out.

 

 

Finding Fiction Markets – A Tedious Task

I want to write a nice interesting story and then have elves whisk it off my computer to submit it to the exact proper publication instantly. It would be nice if the story was automatically accepted and published for the world and galaxies to see within nine days.

Sadly, and for me, regretfully, there is no such service. To be published as a new writer, one has to first discover publications that might be willing to consider your particular type of fiction. I stayed up all night once with a bottle of Dewar’s and counted every possible fiction publication and I lost count at 37 million, three hundred and seven glasses of amber liquid. What? Oh hell, there are more places to publish fiction than I can count, even sans Dewar’s. Pretty much anyone with an internet connection and three functioning brain cells can put up a website and call it a “magazine” or “review” or whatever.  There are way too many of those, as well as the “pay to be published” magazines. Not counting them, there are still thousands of legitimate markets out there.  A website that helps writers find markets, Duotrope, currently lists over 7,600 publications! Thankfully, they have a search screen so writers can sort out the type of publication that might, maybe, perhaps, you never know, match your style of writing. 

The task of identifying a legitimate market that might publish my little gem of fiction is extremely challenging and can we say more tedious than I am capable of managing. Since I live in 2021 I naturally demand instant gratification, so those publications that will respond in six months I eliminate. Who wants to wait a half of a year to get rejected?

This is more me whining than an actual article about the process. The process is what the process is, so I need to stop being lazy. I’m thinking of finding writers who are similar to me, and seeing where they were published. Or just dedicating an hour a day looking for markets, reading their stories, checking their submission guidelines and so forth.

Tedious.

Wish me luck.

My Life Long Dream

…is to be  a recognized writer. To have published enough fiction or humor that I can honestly say that I am a writer. An author. This has been by one and only dream since I was about 11 years old. I had been telling stories, making them up on the fly, for years. As a smaller child, Mario and I would swap stories back and forth, making them up as we spoke. But when I was about 11 years old I actually saved up my money and purchased an Underwood manual typewriter. It weight as much as a small car. Pushing the keys down hard enough to press ink off of the ribbon took muscles for an eleven year old.

I had no idea how to type, so obtained some books on learning. I practiced “She sells sea shells along the sea shore” as well as something about a brown fox jumping over a fence. Whatever, I practiced and practiced. I could not incorporate all of my fingers, and touch typing escaped me. I used two fingers on each hand and occasionally a third or my thumb. Believer it or not, many years later when applying for jobs I always scored above 65 words per minute, at a minimum. Often I scored into the 70s. 

Of course, after learning on an iron Underwood typewriter, later on when computer keyboards came along, I still punched those keps like a monster. I wound up going through at least two keyboards a year. 

I actually submitted a couple of short science fiction stories to magazines, but failed to be published.

 

Then, real life hit. College, and then jobs. I spent many years as a bank manager and then 25 years as an Assistant Dean and Director of Financial Aid at a university. Working in management my whole life, I wrote probably 10,000 words a day just in emails and office memos, annual reports and so forth.

What this did was suck all the creativity out of my writing skills. As a young man, I could write beautiful words. But after decades and decades in management, I lost that skill.

Now I am trying to achieve that dream. I have written about 35 short stories, I have two novels hovering about the 30,000 word length, and I have a hundred pieces of poetry, as well as several humor pieces. I have published seven stories. 

So, I have a lot of work to do. I have taken an online fiction writing course, I have studied, I have joined a writer’s group. But I need to do more. I especially need to work on regaining that magic I had as a child with words. 

Wish me luck.. 

 

The Writing Mood

I am a morning person. At least, after my two mugs of strong coffee. I am exhilarated, just literally filled with creative juices. Unfortunately, mornings are a difficult time to write currently. Too many things to do other than writing, and I have responsibilities.

When the evening comes, my wife goes to bed early to read, and eventually sleep. I don’t hit the sack until at least 1AM. Often 2 or 3. So I have the entire evening, four to six hours, alone and unoccupied. Yet…my creative juices are bone dry. An empty tank.

I sit down at my computer and try to write, and it is as if I have regressed back to Cro-Magnon status. I can barely type out, “The sun was hot. My dog barked. I….whatever”.

I can barely form simple words. Certainly nothing creative at all.

But if I want to be a successful writer, I have to take advantage of the time I have available to write. So, I searched the Internet and have found some suggestions to get me in the writing mood.

  • Write 100 words of anything. Supposedly, according to this theory, the sheer act of writing out 100 words will jump start your creative juices.
  • Find something you recently wrote that needs reviewing and editing, and work on it.
  • Read some published works within your genre.
  • Toss back two shots of Bourbon.
  • Put on some weird ass music, something mystical or maybe even big band, whatever type of music that will wake up your creative monster.
  • Drink a glass of good Russian Vodka with olives and ice.
  • Dress in your writer clothes. No clue what this means, but I think hats are involved.
  • Change your location to change your mood. Move to the kitchen table from your office Sit in your back yard. Maybe the bathroom?
  • Drink more Bourbon and Vodka
  • Meditate about writing
  • Close your eyes and picture your work published, all your family and friends so proud of you, the Pulitzer committee texting you.
  • Try to give your cat a bath. Wait…no, don’t do that.
  • Mix your bourbon and vodka in the same glass!
  • What?
  • What am I writing?
  • My head is spinning, keyboard approaching damn fast.
  • ()MNJRU”ewttwe 77 swasrwewerwq
  • Ouch

Editing Help

Every writer has their own style. A few people can sit down and write beautiful grammatically correct words from the get go. These people pound out pages and pages of ready to read words daily.

Then there are people like me. A story bursts into my brain in full 3-D color. Then I have to somehow convert it from my brainwaves into words on paper. Then I have to reread it at least twenty times, editing as I go. I then submit it to a closed Facebook Writers Group where my colleagues will rip it to shreds. I then rewrite it. And then edit it. Trust me, this is not a pretty process. But for me, it is effective.

To aid my editing, I use a piece of software called prowritingaid.This is an awesome program that scans your writing and offers corrections as well as improvements. You can find repeated words, sentences that are too long and dozens of more complex grammar scans.

This is just a brief view of some of the options:

 

 

 

I have reviewed several editing programs and have found this to be the best for my writing needs.

If you write as I do, you may want to check this out. Or find a similar program.

Dart

PS:  I do not receive any benefit, certainly not any monetary benefit from any product that I recommend.

 

 

 

101 Words

One of my small successes in writing was having a 101 word story published in 101words. They publish 101 word flash fiction daily.  They wanted a rewrite and I worked harder on those 101 words than any other published fiction. Which is a good thing! The story was much improved. You can read it here.

I submitted another one two days ago that I had been toying around with and finally finished. Waiting to hear back from them.

I wrote another one over the past two days. It needs to rest for a day and then I will edit it and if I think it is good enough submit that.

 

The attraction of writing micro fiction?

1. The challenge. Story must have a beginning, middle and end. The challenge is to find a story that can be told in only 101 words. So, we are not talking about War and Peace. The trick is to find a core concept or thought that is worthy enough of being called a story. But not a concept that is too small, otherwise you don’t have a story at all.

2. The word count makes me examine every single word to determine if it is required, necessary, helpful. I am surprised how many words are not necessary. This helps me learn better writing skills.

3. I can complete it over a short period of time, and that success of writing a completed story, no matter only 101 words, gives me a boost. If it gets published, a huge boost!

4. C’mon,  101 words means I have less opportunity to screw up the story!

 

 

Novel Writing Software

Not so long ago finding software to assist you in writing a novel was challenging. Years ago I settled on Scrivener.  At the time it was the best in my opinion, and many people still consider it an excellent option for authors. But today, (2019) there is an explosion of options for novel writers. Some of the programs download to your desktop/laptop/smartphone and others are online only. Some of them are pretty basic, and some of them are just a tad easier than designing an aircraft carrier. Many are free, donation ware or cheap, and some can cost over $100. The online versions charge you a monthly fee.

Writing a novel means keeping track of chapters and scenes, characters, locations, items, plots and subplots and a hundred other stuff. My novel is at 32,000 words, 29 chapters, and I never imagined how challenging it would be to keep track of the characters and what is going on. A novel writing program, on your desktop or online, can hep you greatly. There are drawbacks and advantages with each type:

1. Online only. Wherever you have an internet connection, you can write. These platforms, such as Novelize, keep track of your progress weekly, help with grammar and editing, and offer a host of features. But if you don’t have internet – you can’t write usually.  And some of them don’t have the full power of a desktop software. For instance, I had to change a character’s name while using one such online program, and could not do so. Unless I did it manually. This in fact, was the last straw for me which eventually drove me to Word and then LibreOffice. You can rename people easily through the find and replace function.

2. Desktop/laptop/smartphone versions: Three types here:

a. Vastly complicated
b.  Complicated.
c. Somewhat complicated

Notice there are no “easy” ones. You do have to learn the system and set up your novel properly from the get go, and maintain it. And that can take time. Personal comment: If you spend all your time learning the program, setting it up correctly and maintaining it, when will you actually write your novel?!

I used Scrivener for some time, and later Novelize. Then YWriter, which I really liked. I also tried several others. Today? I use LibreOffice. I have chapters and characters setup, locations and so forth using the Navigation panel. It doesn’t warn me when I am not writing enough, it doesn’t beep at me or offer encouragement or any of the other bells and whistles. But it is free, and I write easily anywhere. I save a copy to my local drive and One-drive, so with or without the internet, I can write. And it is free too, another benefit. I will write a post one day explaining how I set Libreoffice up to be my novel writing software.

Meanwhile, if you are looking for novel writing software, here is a list of most of them. If you google the topic you will find reviews and ratings too.

Novel Writing Software

Bibisco
Dramatica Pro
Free Writer
Liquid Story Binder XE
Manuskript
Mariner Software
New Novelist
The Novel Factory
Novelize
Novlr
Plume Creator
Power Structure
QuollWriter
Scrivener
Storyist
WriteItNow5
Writers Block
Ywriter 6

I am sure there are dozens more, but these are the ones that I have personally installed and tried, at lease once anyway. Yeah, I should have spend more time actually writing my novel! LOL