Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Parkwriting, the AlphaSmart3000, and ZC5 progress


A while back I came across a post on kboards about the AlphaSmart Neo word processor. It sounded pretty awesome to me--a super-simple, super-portable word processor that gets 400+ hours of power from three AA batteries. No cords, no load-time waiting--you press the power button and you can start typing less than two seconds later. I got so excited that I went on ebay looking for one. I ended up buying the predecessor to the Neo, which is called an AlphaSmart3000. Cost me twenty bucks, shipping to Hawaii included.

Another bonus I've discovered about the AlphaSmart: the thing has such a tiny screen that it makes it hard to go back and edit what you've written, so you're sort of forced into just producing new writing instead of my usual "edit-ceaselessly-throughout-the-process" approach that always ends up taking forever. I'm hoping that getting the rough draft all the way out, and then doing a more-involved editing/revision, will be a more efficient and faster way to go about producing a story.

So I've been taking the AlphaSmart3000 to the park after work, and working on Zombie City Episode 5. I'm more than 13K words in so far, and I feel like the AlphaSmart's ease of use is helping me be more productive. I'm also showing a bit more discipline than I typically manage. If things keep going like they have been, I might have ZC5 ready in half the time it took me for the last episode.

Here's hoping!

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