News from the writing front
As November is drawing nearer and doing so faster - at least from my subjective point of view - I decided it was time to start preparing.
My story idea for NaNoWriMo is set already, but due to time constraints (read: college and other unpleasant stuff) I haven’t been able to read or write as much as I would’ve liked in the past years. I have done so feverishly while I was still in school, but that is - oh, an eternity in the past.
To get my typing skills up to speed and practice one of the advices from the creator of NaNoWriMo (Don’t edit, just write), I decided to go ahead and bring another story idea of mine down to paper … well, to screen, strictly speaking. Especially in the beginning it has been very difficult for me not to go back an edit and re-edit what I had written the day before. Better ideas kept springing up and nagging me, but I was persistent and managed to stay away from editing so far. I just added some notes to my chapters to make sure I could incorporate some of those ideas later on (and not forget about them).
Today I changed that a little bit. I realized that the way I was writing the story I was hitting a dead end. Some aspects that needed to be enforced had already been laid down in previous chapters, but didn’t get the attention they needed to. And I suddenly saw how my male main character would be able to combine the character traits I needed him to have (but since those traits are somewhat on the opposite ends of the spectrum I was struggling to find a believable way to fuse them).
So I chucked the last two chapters into my “Alternate” folder and rewrote the episode that needed the change. And I did so using the Dvorak keyboard layout. Ever since Jarsto mentioned this in a comment I have been faithfully practicing and while my writing speed is abysmal and my error rate still very high, I am quite proud to announce that I managed to get 1,000 words done today in about one hour and twenty minutes (please, spare me the wpm count, I know it is terrible, but considering that I only started on that layout about two weeks ago I think I am not doing that bad 
).
Now I am completely tired because that really took up a lot of energy, but at the same time I am pleased because it is much easier than I expected to switch back to Qwertz layout. I think November will be a lot of fun
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Looking at it, regardless of keyboard layout, 1k words in 80 minutes is not bad at all from a pure “word production” point of view. I need to be really in the zone (which happens seldom outside NaNoWriMo) to hit substantially more than 1k per hour, and there are plenty of times when 1k in 80 minutes would be very welcome indeed. So if you’re doing that while getting used to a new keyboard layout my hat is definitely off to you (or it would be if I were wearing one).
[Reply]
Starstuff Reply:
August 4th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I have to admit I have never done something like typing a certain amount of words in a given time and it’s quite a challenge, to be honest. I had more material yesterday to go on and maybe even it 1,667, but I was completely worn out after those 80 or 90 minutes.
What I found interesting though: the slow typing actually allowed me to better fomulate my thoughts. Normally I am typing as fast as I possibly can and just jot down everything as it pops into my mind. Yesterday the writing process was somewhat “finer” and less chaotic. I am already itching to write more, but now it’s work first.
Oh, and here I am writing on a US keyboard with German QWERTZ layout selectd in the OS. Talk about adaptation skills
[Reply]
Jarsto Reply:
August 4th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I think there actually is a Dutch keyboard layout somewhere out there as well, but fortunately no-one uses it. Pretty much any keyboard you sit down to in the Netherlands will just be standard QWERTY.
I can also understand being able to think more when you write more slowly. For me it’s always a matter of trying to balance writing as much as I want with keeping focus. Though years of NaNoWriMo mean I can set a good pace without losing concentration.
[Reply]
Starstuff Reply:
August 4th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
You actually use QWERTY in the Netherlands and not QWERTZ? Because the latter is standard in Germany, I just came upon this keyboard I use now by accident (didn’t want to go through the trouble of ordering a new one
).
[Reply]
Jarsto Reply:
August 4th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Like I said there is an official Dutch Keyboard layout (though that’s also a QWERTY layout) but generally the US QWERTY layout gets used. In case you’re curious about the official Dutch layout Wikipedia has it on file here
Starstuff Reply:
August 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Wow, I never knew that the US keyboard was common in the Netherlands. In Germany, you can hardly find US keyboards, everyone uses the German layout, which in turn is also very different from the Dutch version.
Fascinating how many options there are to arrange the keys.I guess I’ll stick with what I know now; another layout on top of the two I can do right now might make my brain go dead in protest
A colleague pointed out to me that originally the keys were arranged in the QWERTY layout back in the good old typewriter days so you could not type fast as to not get the little arms that were moving to the paper to cling to each other. So they intentionally designed it less ergonomic. For that, thanks again Jarsto, for pointin me to DVORAK. Also still slow, I like using that layout a lot more for longer texts now. Just need to find out if it’s already installed at work. That will drive the other users of my PC mad
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