Go, No Go for LaunchClick here to read in Microsoft Reader. 1 January, 2001 For over two years, I've been writing about using palmtop computers as writing tools. I've advocated them on Usenet, I've written thousands of words on the subject on this and other websites, and I've talked on the subject with fellow writers. I've become something of an authority on the subject, but it's time for me to come clean on something. I'm not sure it works. Don't get me wrong. Every word of this column is written on my palmtop, as have all the revisions of my nonfiction book, Writing On Your Palm. I also wrote my second novel, Do Over!, entirely on my Visor. I know without a doubt that palmtops can be used for writing. I've even strenuously defended the practice of writing on a palmtop in Jon Noring's eBook-List (a great mailing list if you're interested in ebooks). In the practical sense, on this there is no question. But here's the thing. While I've kept up with this weekly column, it's been nearly eighteen months since I finished Do Over!, and in that span I have written no fiction. I've started several books, ranging from Crichtonesque technothrillers to classic space opera SF to contempory fantasy a la Do Over!, but I haven't been able to get a head of steam going on any of them. My first novel, Between Heaven and Hell, was written largely on my pre-Palm DayTimer, in longhand on sheets of loose leaf paper, which I transcribed into my PC at night. This method gave me the ability to write anywhere (one of the chief advantages I see to palmtops) and the act of transcribing gave me a built-in second draft, adding and improving as I typed.This system worked well for me, and by the end the 80,000 word, novel-length Between Heaven and Hell fairly wrote itself. Do Over!, technically a 23,000 word novella rather than a true novel, took longer to write and longer to edit, despite doing all the work on a palmtop computer, thus saving me the effort of later transcription. Why? I don't know. Just as I don't know why I haven't been able to turn out any fiction of substance since. For as much as I've scoffed at those that dislike ebooks because they're "cold and impersonal", implying that there is a warmth and character to paper, there just might be something to that idea. As much as I'm a forward-thinking futurist, I have a dangerous retro streak (I turn on key clicks on my Jornada so that typing on my Stowaway sounds like an old typewriter) and I'm wondering if the muse is somehow connected to that old tree pulp. For I've found that while typing on my Jornada isn't much different than typing on a laptop, writing with a stylus and {Transcriber, Graffiti, Character Recognizer, Jot, TealScript} still doesn't quite capture the feel and rhythm of pen and paper. Maybe it's the accuracy, or lack thereof, of the recognition, but I while I can write quickly with a stylus, I never seem to break through that cognitive wall and lose myself in the story. On some level, I'm always aware of the computer. Which brings me to another point. Unless you're really into paper airplanes, there aren't a lot of distractions when writing with simple pen and paper. With a computer, palmtop or otherwise, there always seems to be something else to do, some diversion to distract me from the task at hand. This is actually worse on the Pocket PC than it was on the Palm, since now I have a multitasking operating system with multimedia, internet, etc. If I can have Word, two bookreaders and Internet Explorer all open at the same time, how much can I focus on the story? Maybe if my Pocket PC had a higher resolution digitizer that would allow me to write as small on screen as I do on paper without sacrificing recognition accuracy, it would work better, but I can't be sure. And as much as I hate to admit it, the screen may well be too small to write complete words. Palm-size screens work fine for single character recognizers like Graffiti, but I always seem to get stuck for space while trying to write words like "recognizers" in Transcriber on my Jornada. Maybe it would be easier on a Tablet PC, but then you lose portability. Sheesh. I've also noticed another issue related to screen size. The smaller size of the palmtop screen tends to lead to smaller paragraphs. I get uncomfortable when the top of the current paragraph scrolls off the top of the screen, I guess subconsciously afraid that I'm rambling into the unreadable, pages-long paragraph hell used by many classical Russian novelists. It's like a novice sailor losing sight of the shoreline. So to prevent that from happening, I start new paragraphs every couple sentences or so, making any true narrative or descriptive flow all but impossible. Everything just gets chopped into clipped, ultra-fast chunks, kind of a prose screenplay. It also tends to make my chapters only a couple of pages long, since I have no sense of where I started something. Maybe it comes down to using the right tool for the right job. My Stowaway is easily portable, going anywhere I need to take it, so maybe I just need to make sure the driver is always running so I and just dock it and start typing when the muse strikes. I've found that Transcriber works quite well for editing/correction, but not as well for the white-hot data entry of first drafts. Maybe I just need to re-evaluate which tools I use for which tasks. But it can't be that easy, can it? Or, since I'm still cranking out these columns at a roughly consistent 1,000 words a week, maybe there's nothing wrong with the tools and I just have good old fashioned Writer's Block when it comes to fiction. If it is, well, you know what they say: "It's a poor carpenter that blames his tools." Maybe I just have to start writing, come hell or high water, staring at the blank white screen of my Jornada until my forehead bleeds. So what of it, readers? Please tell me I'm not full of it. How do you write with a palmtop, and what have you accomplished with it? Email me at the link below, or join the discussion on my eGroup. |