Better than silly putty

Pulse is working beautifully again for me. I'm able to write a few lines as they occur to me while I'm doing other things. It's lovely to be so productive.

The text conversion tool does a very good job of translating my handwriting. Not perfect by any means, but pretty darn good for all that. It really seems to try hard to come up with something that is English even if it's not always right. And therein lies a source of great mirth for me. Occasionally it will come up with something that is totally inappropriate. For instance, today I uploaded half a page of stuff, ran it through the conversion program ( just takes a single click of the mouse) and dropped it into LSB. Then I stared to check it. There on a line all by itself, three tabs out from the left-hand edge, was the following.

I ovulated.

Totally NOT what I'd written. How it came up with that I have no idea. I'd written 'I hesitated.', but now I keep giggling at the sheer lunacy of the sentence in the context of the scene.

Hmmm. They do say that small things amuse small minds, don't they?

Not so fast...

I had a little glitch with the Pulse today. When I docked the pen in its USB cradle it didn't upload the words. It hung there, looking as if it was working but it wasn't. I ended up having to call their support line. I spoke with a real human being, and that's a note-worthy thing. Sue was very helpful but didn't know what was wrong. She suggested that I undock the pen wait a few moments and try it again. That worked. I had the idea that I could lose a load of work but eventually sense prevailed. Even if I couldn't upload the text I wouldn't have lost a thing. Everything is written down so at worst I'd have to type it in. It did give me a bit of a turn though.

I only wrote 265 new words today, but they came out even better than I planned last night. Ohhh, this is such fun. I can't understand why I was dragging my feet for so long. Anyway, I wrote the end of Chpter 2 and I love it. It's a cliffhanger, of course, and a really cool, one at that.

Thudump...Thudump... Thudump

The Pulse is certainly beating for me. I'm writing loads of stuff and I love it all. It's so much easier when I can just write a few sentences in between doing other things. I'm getting so much done it's incredible. The story is taking off. I wasn't too sure about writing in first person to begin with. It certainly is a challenge, but it feels right for this one. I could have written a couple of thousand words today, but I'm holding back for now. It gives me something to look forward to tomorrow. This is terrific. Definitely the best present ever.

I Have a Pulse

For those who may have thought that I had dropped off the face of the planet or had in fact expired -- good news. I'm still around. And I have a Pulse . I'm not just talking about the kind that can be felt at the throat and wrist either. I'm talking about the latest techie gadget, the one I received from my spouse as a Christmas gift. So what, you ask, am I wittering on about? I'll tell you.

The Pulse looks like a pen but it's actually a rather nifty paper-based computer from Livescribe. It writes just like a pen, but it has a very specialized digital camera at the pointy end which, if you write on the Livescribe "dot" paper, can be uploaded to your computer. It also has the really neat ability to record sounds and "attach" the recording to your notes or to a drawing. Amazing. And what's more it really works! Add on an additional software package called MyScript for LiveScribe that transforms your scribbles into text and you have a very powerful writing tool. One that can be used just about anywhere.

I often find that pounding the keyboard sort of locks my Muse up in a cage. Oh I can see what I want to write all right. It just won't flow to the fingertips. Writing longhand helps, but then I have the chore of transcribing my words into Liquid Story Binder so it takes at least twice as long to get my words into the chapter I'm working on... and my time is limited. But with the Pulse I'm able to write a scene, upload it, change the scribble to text (okay you DO have to write fairly neatly), edit the text to put right the words that come out as garbage because of the bad handwriting, and save it as a text file. Then, when I have a few spare moments I can import the file into Liquid Story Binder. Simple. Effective. And totally cool for techies like me. And I can use it on planes without having to haul out the laptop. Marvelous!

The downside is that you do have to use the special "dot" paper but if you have the right kind of color laser printer you can print your own. My package came with 5 college-ruled notebooks so it isn't a problem for me. There are ruled and plain journals available too, if that's your prefered writing medium.

So now I really don't have any excuses at all not to write, do I?