Invisible Software
For the past couple of weeks I have been living in a strange alternative universe where proprietary formatting for applications never happened. I have been storing my to do list on my phone and editing it in my word-processor on both Windows and OSX. My phone happens to run Android but I could just as easily be doing this on an iPhone. I’ve been taking notes on my phone when out in the playground with the baby and been able to edit them in my word processor, add them to my Evernote stack and/or do whatever else I want with Read more…
White Screen of Death
My apologies to those of you who glanced at the blog yesterday and found only a blank white screen. You were encountering a fairly well known WordPress flaw colloquially known as the White Screen of Death. I was looking at it myself in a lot more panicked way since my entire website seemed to have vaporised. How did this happen? Why was I panicking? Let’s deal with the second one first. I was panicking because two and a half years worth of blog posts and comments along with various widgets I had hand-written had vanished into the ether and I Read more…
Procrastination Cascades
If you’re anything like me you can always find an excuse not to sit down and write. And even when you start, you can probably find ways of stopping yourself. This has become particularly evident to me over the past few days. I normally use a program called Freedom 2 to cut myself off from the Internet for fixed periods of time. The internet is the ultimate tool for self-distraction and by cutting myself off from it and forcing myself to sit down at the computer I can usually pretty much guarantee I will get some writing done. I usually set Read more…
Workflow 2013
I’m currently working on The Fall of Macharius and, since I am right in the middle of a new novel, now seems like a good time to talk about the tools I use and my workflow. It’s on my mind and a nice easy subject to write a blog post about and, hey, I’m all about taking the easy way out whenever possible. I am constantly trying to optimise my use of time. I’ve streamlined my working process a little since the last time I discussed it so here are my current methods. I still use Evernote to gather ideas, information, Read more…
Strategy Games Sale at Good Old Games
Good Old Games is having a sale of strategy games over this weekend. All of the Age of Wonders games and several of the Heroes of Might and Magic games along with many good city management games and King of Dragon Pass are available at 50% off. None of them cost more than a few dollars. Just thought some of you might like to know!
Evernote Clearly
As long-term readers of this blog will know I use Evernote a lot. It is my go-to program for storing ideas and web clippings. I also keep travel documents such as e-tickets in it and maps of places I am visiting and all sorts of other stuff. It has many advantages – it is cloud-based and it synchronises all of your notes and clippings to any computer or phone that you have the Evernote app installed upon. This makes it an invaluable notebook-substitute for any writer. It is free an it runs on most PC and mobile phone operating systems. Read more…
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