Katherine Villyard's Blog, page 13

Librem 5 First Thoughts

Okay, I’ve been playing with this for less than 24 hours and it’s not my daily driver phone or anything, so… disclaimer.

If you’re not familiar with Purism, they’re the makers of absolutely gorgeous tech for the technoparanoid. (They also have social networking that proudly doesn’t spy on you.) Seriously, I have one of their Librem 13 laptops, which is fully user-serviceable and includes hardware kill switches for microphone, camera, and wifi. So when I heard about their phone kickstarter during those heady post-Snowden days, I said to myself, “Self, YOU are one of the technoparanoid, back this!”

So, I bought a Librem 5.

In 2018.

It just arrived a week or two ago.

I confess that some of my squee died in the intervening 4 years. This makes me very sad. I let it sit on my kitchen counter for a while before unboxing it. I, er, just bought a brand new iPhone, see, and… er. Um. Awkward.

So, on the plus side: It’s lovely, just like the Librem 13 is lovely. Seriously. I don’t have a SIM card for it, but… it’s beautiful, and it runs linux. It’s not part of the Google and Apple monopoly on phones, it’s a FOSS (free and open source software) operating system on a phone. I feel like this is something worth supporting. It’s gorgeous and secure, and fully convergent. (I think my squee is returning…)

Do I think it’ll catch on and save the world? I wish! but…

On the minus side: there’s no ecosystem of apps, so right now it’s a phone and a weather app and a web browser (Firefox!) and a camera labeled “experimental.” They’re supposed to push out software updates over time, but right now? this is for early adopters. I would not recommend this to, for example, my nontechnical friends. I mean. I never succeeded in getting my mother to get a freaking cell phone at all. Once I went to work and left my old Nokia cellphone–just a little bar with dial buttons–with her, and she said, “I’m afraid to use it. I’m afraid I’ll break it.” (Those things were indestructible!) Her head would explode if she tried to use this. Do I need to mention again that I’ve been trying to get people to send me encrypted email since, what, 1995?

And that’s how They [TM] get you. You could use the lovely phone with less features that protects your privacy, or you could get the latest iPhone or Android phone and let Facebook track your calls and location through their app, and people will choose their convenience over their own good. Me? Living with my paranoia–which is still real!–since 2013… the edges have worn a little bare.

(My thought processes behind buying an iPhone in 2017, btw, were “Where does Google make their money? Advertising. Where does Apple make their money? Hardware sales.” I held out on buying a new phone for a long time after that, waiting for my Librem 5! I finally gave up when the 2017 iPhone–pristine–developed near-complete battery death.)

Sadly, I’m not using my lovely Librem 13 as much as I’d like any more, either. I run QubesOS–it used to freeze horribly on the Librem 13 because I have a very early version without the virtualization support later versions of QubesOS want–or, alas, Windows for work things, the Sims 4, and a slew of writing software. PureOS, Purism’s linux distro, is fully endorsed by the Free Software Foundation because it’s fully auditable, but it doesn’t support Wine very well, so… right now the laptop runs Xubuntu for my writing apps? but I might get restless and switch things up again, we’ll see. Xubuntu does run all my writing apps fine with wine, though.

Do you want to be an outlier? This might be the phone for you!

Psst!

Hey, Goodreads peeps! My ebook is on sale at Amazon in preparation for Reasons [TM], so now might be a good time to snag a copy.

IT’S OUT!

Love Stories is out and available for order on Amazon and all your other favorite book-buying platforms!

If you enjoy it, it would really help me out if you left a review!

Happy Halloween!

And what could be more appropriate for Halloween than this video about Bram Stoker and the Fears that Built Dracula?

KILLER APPS for writers!

1. Scrivener.

We all know Scrivener is cool, right? View your text as either an individual scene, a giant block, or a corkboard or outline. Reorder scenes and chapters with ease. Export to various formats, but I really only use Word/RTF. Seriously, moving your chapters around in other programs hurts, ow, don’t do that!

2. Aeon Timeline.

This app is amazing. It’s the easiest way to keep track of time in your story. My novel in progress has vampires in it and spans from the 1840s to current day. Do you want to do math to figure out how old your characters are in each scene, what season it is, what the weather is like, how much time has passed since the last scene, how long it took them to travel from A to B? I’m putting world events in my timeline as well if I think they would affect my characters. It does one thing, and it does it brilliantly.

Also, well. I’m also writing a short story in the same universe as my novel and because they share a universe, they share a Timeline. If it turns into a series–it’s a standalone novel with series potential–it will continue to use the same file.

3. The Office Suite of your choice.

Okay, okay, I’m using Microsoft Office because I have it for work, and I love it, but if you’re broke or just have an issue with Microsoft you can get similar features with some other packages. The main things I’m using are:

3. a. Track Changes and embedded comments in Word. Especially comments in Word. My writer’s group sends me Word documents with embedded comments and it is *chef kiss*. (Last I checked, Word still have the absolute best Track Changes feature. Let me know if I’m out of date!)

3. b. Excel. Before Aeon Timeline I used this to track time and ages. I still used it as scratch to figure out some travel time, and, because I’m a pantser, I’m doing a post-first-draft story grid in Excel. Er. I googled to look for a description of Story Grid exactly the way I’m doing it and didn’t find much right away (although this is the closest). The short version:

Get a list of chapters out of ScrivenerGet a list of scenes out of ScrivenerNumber bothOne line summaryList the role of each scene–rising/falling action, Save the Cat beat, etc.Date when the scene is setLocation where the scene is setWhich arc this scene falls into, color-codedAny other plot threads I want to track/update

What I’m actively in the market for: Something to keep my story bible in. Right now it’s in Evernote/Scrivener/Aeon Timeline/Excel, and Evernote is cool, but I kind of want something like a wiki. We’ll see.

(Yes, I know some writers use slips of paper, but I have a bad relationship with slips of paper and lose them.)

Oh, and I’ve created my characters in The Sims 4 for visual references, and use Pinterest for visual references/moodboard type stuff.

Tell me about your favorite killer app pieces of writing software!

The Motivational Spreadsheet of Doom!

Okay, honestly? I don’t consider myself an Excel guru. That said, I’ve shared versions of this spreadsheet with other writers and they agree that it is SUPER MOTIVATING.

This spreadsheet works by being both the carrot and the stick simultaneously. It assumes you’re writing in Word, or some other program that gives you an entire document wordcount. (I’ve used it with Scrivener as well.) It adds up how many words you wrote today, how many days it’s been since you wrote last, your average wordcount, how many words you have to go on your project, and your estimated finish date if you write your average wordcount every single day.

The only Excel you need to know is how to use fill down. TL;DR: Just highlight the cells and hit control-D, or use the cute little graphical button.

You can get the spreadsheet here.

First draft of my novel complete!

I have a large swath of text with characters, plot, setting, and a beginning, middle, and end. It’s currently 52,489 words, which is (as you know, Bob,) too short. My writer’s group warned me repeatedly that it would be too short, but I’m not that concerned. I think I can add 20,000-25,000 words in revision easily.

Why my novel is too short:

I usually write short stories, despite certain critique partners past opening each short story critique with “I’m not going to bury the lede here: this is a novel.” (Hi! I’m grinning and waving at you!) Critique partners present kept saying things like “you’re burning fuel at an extraordinary rate…” Yes, I know, that’s valid, but… My first drafts have a tendency to be light on sensory description. In fact, my zero drafts read like stage plays or screenplays, with dialog and basic blocking. I was a theater major, once upon a time, and wanted to be a screenwriter at one point. I introduced an important character 3/4 of the way in and need to retrofit him in.

Hi, my name is Katherine and I am a pantser. (“Hi, Katherine!”)

ANYWAY.

It’ll be fine.

(Also, those other stories were all under 10,000 words and I didn’t feel like I had 65,000 words more to say about them!)

Short Story Collection things

If you would like to read an advance copy of the collection, you can do it at Booksprout or Book Sirens.

If you just want a free copy, there’s a Goodreads Giveaway going on now!

That is all.

It’s not time-wasting! ;)

Creating my characters in the Sims 4? Rolling them up as Dungeons and Dragons characters? RESEARCH.

(Sadly, I’m not actually PLAYING them.)

Coming Soon!

Love Stories, a collection of previously published and unpublished short fiction. Expected date of publication: October 31.