And it begins...with tech. Again.

[flo]

Shit I have been wanting to respond to in some way for a goddamn week:

• Dude? I know that this guy's article on iA Writer sounds good, but don't. Don't buy it. If you write long-form ANYTHING on an iPad, you probably already know that landscape is the only way to go if you're not attaching an external keyboard, and iA Writer's landscape SUCKS. The big, beautiful text means that you only get to see two or three paragraphs at a time (or, if you're like me, one or two very long paragraphs), and the extra row on top of their modified version of the built-in keyboard means that even more writing is obscured. Focus mode is kind of a joke-- in long-form writing, you generally need to refer back and forth to check spellings or whatever, and polishing a sentence is not something you need to grey out other text to do. Yeah, I know you bought it already. I am sorry in advance.

• Apparently, the US Postal Service may be taking it's last dive. Really solid article at BusinessWeek, eye-opening and sad. Kind of explains why the junk mail really just keeps coming these days in the US. (via rmateu @ tumblr)

• Unbound, a book-focused Kickstarter clone, is one of the most headscratching new publishing things I have seen, sporting only a 'book' focus and higher project fees as additions to the original formula. From the established author's pov (which is who they're targeting for supply for their initial push), the service doesn't really make much sense. If you have a new idea you want to write, you could very, very easily reach your current readers through Kickstarter or really any old website, set your own prices for each contribution level and promise more deliverable things than lunches in London (not so convenient if you live nowhere near there) and so forth. Best of all, you wouldn't have to pay a new, unproven publishing company 50% of the funding you get for your project, instead of the 10% that Amazon and Kickstarter would take.

• Michael Mace's reaction to Windows 8, or basically the only article you need to read about Microsoft's recently announced, tablet-friendly incarnation of Windows.

Comments

[flo]

Hehe, I gotcha. I love being able to read back a bit without scrolling when I am just getting into things-- usually the first thousand words of any session-- and while I could probably do without it once I'm really in the flow, I remember that it it just annoyed me too much for me to even get there without grumbling. Almost makes me want to test it out again just to see if my current thinking will hold. Almost :D

Shame that it doesn't work with Scrivener very well. Was it the fact that formatting didn't carry over, or was it other issues?

Also, hello 50k! Did it surprise you to be able to comfortably get so much done on the iPad? It did me, to the point where I really notice when I switch to my computer, and I cannot double space for periods any more. Now if they would just let you train, edit or customize the dictionary, or rachet down autocorrect...

[flo]

>> It's actually that the directory structures each apps uses in Dropbox are incompatible

And no way to change Writer's dropbox directory, I'm guessing? Ah, nuts, one of those things.

>> All in all, though, I was surprised how good a writing platform the devices ended up being. o_O

Haha, yes. There's many things I would change (a more teachable dictionary! The asterisk character not being on the deepest symbol keyboard! Markdown being better supported through styles!), but once you've got the hang of the keyboard, it's a really good way to write (nearly) anywhere, and a good way to do that while in relatively good sync with whatever projects you're working on.