I have to say I'm liking FocusWriter very much!Today was its first proper "used in anger" moment - when I took my new netbook with me to my daughter's dance class and sat in the car (when I would normally read) and got back to my much neglected novel. In the 23 minutes I had between dropping her off and walking back to the car and then leaving the car to go and collect her again I managed to get 431 words down.
The netbook (an ASUS 1015PX) sits perfectly on my knee in the car, the back of the screen rests on the steering wheel (I don't even have to move the seat back) and it's a very comfortable sitting position (more comfortable than sat here amongst the end of week detritus that litters the kitchen table - although at least the netbook manages to find a space amongst it, not something I could have done with my big work laptop). I think it's going to be a very beautiful relationship!My one little gripe with FocusWriter is that it has a US English dictionary, so I'm having to ignore its little quirks and add British (proper!) spelling to it as I go along. Apparently you can add the British Dictionary from Open Office to it (but this info I found on the web was before the OpenOffice, LibreOffice split) so this will require some investigation and no doubt some fiddling.Just before I came to write this, according to FocusWriter's daily counter I had achieved 167% of my self-imposed 500words/day total (this is good, but it doesn't do (it would seem) cumulative totals, so I can only feel pleased or disappointed daily. Being able to set, for example, 5000 words per month would be more useful to me at the moment!)I turned on, for no other reason than it amuses me greatly, the faked old fashioned typewriter clicky-clacking sound as I type. I never been a touch-typer exactly and I do have to keep looking down at the keyboard when things start to go wrong (the netbook's keyboard is about the biggest and most well-laid out and tactile I could find on this class of computer - it's one of the reasons I bought this particular model) but when I'm in full flow and the clicking is rhythmic and rapid its a great incentive to keep going and not pause to think of exactly the adjective you were looking for or to go back and correct a typo.Well, there you go, a 400+ word blog... There will be some in Wordwatchers that might argue that's 400 words wasted since they're not in the novel and they could be right, but I just wanted to share!John (on his netbook)
