I know I promised a dreadful rant on word processors, but there’s just too much other stuff on my mind. Last Thursday I accepted a new job, and submitted my resignation from an organization I’ve been with for more than a decade. Without going into any real specific details, I’m leaving my unit organized, efficient, and fully staffed with highly qualified and trained individuals. When I started, the unit was fairly well disorganized and derided as the biggest problem in our division. In short, it’s in better shape than I found it, and likely to stay that way. Another interesting tidbit is that the last project I’m working on happens to be connected to a series of reports that hasn’t had an update in 11 years. That last report was the first major project I worked on. This weekend I also began sending out my WIP for folks to read and review. I started the book right around the time I started my current job. There is a symmetry in all of these things I appreciate, it’s the sort of thing you find in a novel. While life continues on and a new adventure is just around the corner, a major chapter has concluded.

To tie this into writing, specifically thoughts about the end of a novel. I haven’t gotten to the point of actually having the ending of a fully drafted and once revised book before. Last Friday, somewhere near the bottom of a glass of wine, technically Saturday morning, I got to the last chapter, then last page, and paragraph and finally sentence. I spent longer on those last few sentences than anything else in the entire last chapter. I know the book needs to end in the general vicinity of where it has, it’s just that I’m hung up on what, precisely, those last few words ought to be.

Very often the end of a book is some sort of ‘happily ever after’. However, there are also very many books that are intended to be part of a series. These finish on a similar sentiment, but say something more like ‘and he walked off into the sunset’. One particular ending that’s simultaneously final but gives a distinctly walk off into the sunset feel was the ending to Rama Revealed, by Arthur C. Clarke and Genry Lee. Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy, I recall it having a poetic air. It was final and bitter-sweet, yet had the air of going on to another adventure. That ending stuck with me because it was so well done. I loved Dune, but I couldn’t tell you what the last scene was, and I’m too lazy to dig it up. To illustrate the point, I semi-randomly pulled a few books from my shelf and picked out the very last sentence of each:

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
“Okay, baby, hold tight,” said Zaphod. “We’ll take in a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
“Thank goodness!” said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco-jar.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke(I’m going to argue two endings here one on Ch 45 and one on Ch 46)

Chapter 45:
Though that, surely, could not be its ultimate goal, it was aimed squarely at the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and the lonely gulfs beyond the Milky Way.

Chapter 46:
The Ramans do everything in threes.

The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
For I am Uhtred, Earl Uhtred, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and destiny is everything.

All have some flavor of happily ever after or walking off into the sunset (also interpreted as this adventure is over, but another is around the corner.) I suppose one could do a thesis for an MFA on the last sentence of English novels, I daresay many someones have. My point remains, how does one neatly wrap it all up and close it with a pretty little bow? I don’t know exactly. For the moment the manuscript is in the tender care of beta readers. Once they return a verdict, I’ll have plenty of other things to mop up before I get back to the end.

When I started writing this blog post, I wanted to rant about computers and software in general, then throw in a few more rants about backups and data storage. Unfortunately, as I really got heated up, I realized this is kind of a big topic. My solution is to split the rant into 3 parts. Before I launch into my first epic/pointless rant, I want to give a little bit of perspective as to why I felt I should waste my time (and yours, should you carelessly read beyond the first paragraph).

One of my many hobbies is wood working. Over the years I’ve collected a truly eclectic selection of saws, jigs, and stuff that specializes in turning fingers into hamburger. The more I work, the more I realize the importance of the right tool for the job, and not just the right tool, but really good tools. In general, I’d argue that the better the tool, the more productive you are. Yes, I can build cabinets with a guide and a circular saw, that totally works, but I couldn’t do it professionally without a cabinet saw.

I feel that writing is the same. You need to have tools that work and help to make you more productive. Unlike with woodworking where tools have a fairly specific domain and price is generally commensurate with quality and usability, writing tools have no such simple guidelines.

With that out of the way, the first thing I want to rant about is computers and operating systems. As a programmer, gamer, and data analyst, I already demand quite a bit from any given computing device, however I’m going to focus just on the perspective of a writer, specifically a writer who is trying to construct a series of novels and also chip away at other projects.

A lot of writers use paper to draft their initial work. I’m not one of those. My handwriting is borderline illegible, doesn’t offer spell-check, and subject to coffee damage. It’s not that I don’t use notebooks, I do, it’s just that I prefer to write on a computer, I’m a lot faster and it suits my work habits a lot better. Needless to say I use my computer a LOT. A knee-jerk reaction might be – Any computer will work right?

No, and this is why this is a rant.

First off, the older I get the less patience I have for things that don’t work the way I need them to. If I have to fight with something, and can’t implement my own fix, I really just feel like it’s not worth my time. This is especially true if I had to pay for it. To be clear, I have my favorites, but every platform has some limitation or problem. No matter what, you’ve got to be willing to put up with one problem or another. Choosing a good computer is more a matter of picking which problems are the least annoying. Let’s go down the list.

I’ll start with mobile platforms (let’s just lump iPad, Surface, Nexus, Galaxy, and so on into a single category). There are two key problems you’ve got to deal with. The first is the ability to manage documents. These types of devices allow one document to be open at a time, and to be really effective, require you to use some cloud-based hosting service for your data, which I suppose is fine, but it’s not particularly efficient and requires you to have access to Wi-Fi whenever you want to work. While Wi-Fi is ubiquitous, it’s not a guarantee. For drafting an initial manuscript or jotting down ideas I think these platforms are convenient, but really work out to the equivalent of a very expensive pad of paper. Thinking about only getting one document at a time, imagine you’re trying to do research and cross-reference some notes? Perhaps you’re attempting to make some edits that will blend events in two chapters to make one good chapter instead of two weak ones? Put multiple documents together? These devices aren’t designed for that sort of work flow. Trying to manage a large scale-project with lots of files would be challenging to impossible on one of these things. The other key problem is the interface. A touch-screen isn’t an ideal way to type and the tiny plug-in keyboards you get for most of these are not comfortable for lots of writing. Not only that, I cringe to think of the challenge in copying, pasting, and formatting on those.

I’ve never used Chrome OS, but it’s the sort of platform you’d have to lump with mobile platforms. Despite the fact that this tends to be packaged as a laptop, it’s more like a mobile platform in functionality. Yes, it’s inexpensive, but it lacks the range of software that I would consider adequate for managing a complex writing project (or several).

Apple is an excellent platform, but it’s outrageously expensive. The cost alone makes it an impractical option for me, not to mention the suite of available applications is a little smaller than I’d like, though that’s generally not a total deal-breaker for me. As a writer, if you can afford a macbook pro, this is, in my opinion, the best option. That said, you can pick up a MacMini for a reasonable price, but it lacks the mobility of a laptop, and for writers, this is usually a problem. It certainly is for me.

Ubuntu is also a very good platform, it’s inexpensive and flexible. In terms of cost, it’s great, but the limited application and hardware support really make it challenging to use. What really makes this platform work for me is that if something isn’t working properly, I’ve got the flexibility of manipulating it until it does work.

I’d like to say that Windows really is the best option because of it’s reasonably affordable price tag (even for a 15” laptop), vast list of available software, reasonably stable configuration, and wide ranging support of hardware, but I can’t. Ever since Windows 8 arrived, it’s been buggy, the document management has become difficult to impossible*, and trying to work through the interface is an extreme headache. Even more so than learning a brand-new OS like Ubuntu Linux. My wife struggles with the new system daily, and I’ve had more than one help-support type call from family. I pin most of the issues with Windows on Microsoft trying to apply a mobile paradigm to a platform for which it makes no sense. Even Apple, the reigning champion of ‘do everything with us’ realizes that mobile devices are used differently than laptop and desktop computers. My own ranting aside, a large majority of computer users will find this to be the best platform.

Because of limitations in opening multiple documents simultaneously, and the general difficulty in using the system, Windows is no longer an option for me. The usability problems outweigh virtually every other problem on other platforms, especially when there are less expensive options available. This leaves me with two realistic alternatives -Mac or Ubuntu. As much as I would prefer to go with Apple, the cost of a comfortably large laptop is prohibitive. Therefore, I went with an Ubuntu laptop for my primary setup. It’s what I’ve been using for years. Sure, I’ve been without certain amenities, but I haven’t found that I really need them. At least until a few months ago when I started seriously looking into the steps one needs to take after finishing a novel.

With that in mind, I’ve recently augmented my computing environment with a MacMini, it’s about the same price as a good Windows desktop, but without all of the Windows problems. MacMini combined with Ubuntu laptop is STILL cheaper than a macbook pro, by half. So, now I get access to the applications I want moving into the next stage of novel writing as well as the portability I want.

This sounds like a good solution, so what’s the problem?

In short – working across multiple platforms, but that’s only part of the problem. It really doesn’t matter what platform you select, there are going to be difficulties. What are the problems? Stay tuned, I’ll continue this rant later.

* I’m extremely concerned about trying to bring this into the workplace someday. Most of my job is managing documents. I worry about the shiny new limitations related to organizing and managing thousands of documents, having multiple files open simultaneously, and the manner in which file storage is obfuscated to the point where you’re obligated to search for your document instead of navigating directly to it. I expect this will have a notable effect on productivity.

photo credit: IMG_0561 via photopin (license)