The Pleasure of Having the Right Tools
Even though success with my own writing—my fiction—continues to elude me, I'm very fortunate in so many ways, and I know it.
I have my health. I have a terrific, supportive spouse, a nice place to live, food on the table, and I'm well-paid for my words. Even if it's writing speeches, scripts, websites and technical docs for now.
Oh, and there's one other thing I have to be thankful for: a new computer.
Make that the new iMac. Pure aluminum-encased hotness.
With the 24" screen, I can have two complete pages of text visible at once, which makes it a lot easier to see what you're working on. You also get a better sense of the flow in a chapter, scene or stretch of dialogue.
The Delicious New iMac Keyboard
Truly, it's a pleasure to sit down to work every day knowing that you won't have to fight with your tools. For the record, the keyboard is the best I've ever worked on. I can't explain why; just go to an Apple store and try it yourself and you'll see what I mean. I won't go into detail about the computer and all its features, but I will mention what writing software I'm using because I've discovered that so far these programs work flawlessly with the computer:
For bare-bones writing, I use a sweet little program created by a guy from Bangor, Maine. It's called WriteRoom. If you're looking for something that is truly "distraction-free", check it out.
Once I have some text and need to form it into something longer and more structured, like a book, I move my work over to Apple's iWork, specifically the word-processing program, Pages. Unlike working with MS Office, it's seamless, with none of the compatibility issues you always seem to get with Word.
Finally, for any kind of script work, I go to a workhorse of a program—Final Draft. This is a great tool for any kind of scriptwriting because it automates all of the formatting. It's the one all the pros use.
A major event in the life of any Mac owner is the arrival of a new Mac. With this in mind, here's a cheesy photo essay documenting the morning mine came:
The workspace, before
The outer box containing the iMac box
A knife, to cut the box open
Cutting the outer box open
The first hint of the inner box
The inner box in all its glory
A groovy Styrofoam tray greets you
More boxes within boxes: the keyboard
The keyboard, revealed
The iMac assumes its new place on the desk
The iMac beside its outdated cousin, the eMac
I know this entry was incredibly self-indulgent, but I promise you, if you get yourself a new iMac, you'll want to do the same thing. You'll want to savor every moment of the computer's newness.
Here's to the pleasure of having the right tools.