Sooo, I bought an iPad for purposes of Facetime with the (currently overseas) wife and kid. Yes, I know there’s Skype, but my family seem to find Facetime simpler.
Anyway, since I’ve got the thing I decided to see if Pages (apple’s word processor app) was as good as I remembered from my train-commute days.
Well, apparently it is. Now I’m tappy-tapping away on this little mini bluetooth keyboard and making pretty neat progress.
Cool things about it so far:
- Pages seems better than the Microsoft offering for synchronising. It was just easier to set up and less conflicts / hang ups (YMMV)
- Pages seems better than the Microsoft offering for starting in the place you left off. It does this very intuitively, quickly, and consistently
- Pages seems better than the Microsoft offering for scrolling through: much smoother and easier to do (and thus faster).
- The screen is plenty big, much nicer than trying to write on a phone, but not as awkward as a laptop
- Bluetooth keyboard seems to never need charging… I’ve charged it maybe once since I bought it. I would like these same batteries to be in everything, thank you.
- The whole thing folds up tiny
- Can be used during take off and landing (although I haven’t tried using the bluetooth keyboard for this)
Whether this will equate to a swiftly finished edit or not… well GTA V coming out for PC this week sure as hell hasn’t helped me much with putting the hours in, but I’ve certainly found the bit of writing I have done to be much much much MUUUUUCH more convenient.
Oh, and my other excuse for a lack of progress last week: I had a brilliant few days out in the bush, camping and four wheel driving with some good friends up in the hills about five hours out of Sydney.
That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it anyway.
So what’s your favourite on-the-go writing system? Napkins? Leather-bound scribbling tomes? A laptop?
Best regards,
D.R.Sylvester
D.R.SYLVESTER FICTION 
Happy that you found a good writing platform! Being able to automatically track where you left off is a big one. Seven years of our lives are wasted scrolling through story notes and trying to piece together writing momentum (source: me). I think camping is the best way to procrastinate, because you’re doing something most of us urbanized folks neglect to do. I also read in the paper recently that the surge in myopia is caused by people’s lack of getting outside, so you’re also improving your eyesight health, which is cripplingly important for us writers.
As for my on-the-go writing system, a laptop trumps all. Hilariously enough, I enjoy lugging around a heavy 15” Macbook Pro; makes me feel like I’m getting things done while building core torso strength.
Laptops are a good option, for sure (and handy for getting up a good pump!?). Probably the only option for doing some tasks on the go, instead of just boosting word count. I’ll have to get a good one if I move overseas, because my gaming PC is a bit chunky to be lugging around… (Really good for building those guns! )
As for the myopia, I hope one good weekend in between months of office-job twilight are enough to hold back the tide for me!
The only thing I don’t like is the the spell check, thesaurus, etc. I find these work better on Word.
Yeah, you’re absolutely right about that. They’re pretty average on the apple app (Appapple?). Still, I’m planning to do the final polish on my PC instead of on the ipad. This is just to get the bulk of the slogging done
Sensible, I’d say. How close are you to finishing? Are you going for trad or self publishing?