Busy Writing...At Last

This week, I have been concentrating on upping my writing productivity after having COVID-19 and our trip away to the Rugby World Cup (RWC) in Lille, France.

Thankfully, the RWC climaxes on Saturday evening, with England having played Argentina in the third-place play-off on Friday evening.

COVID left me a little tired, a bit of Long Covid. Never mind, onwards and upwards.

'Beasting Dartmoor' continues at a pace. I'm starting to write Chapter Twenty-Seven, and the story is approaching a climactic ending. I already know what the ending will be. I worked through it during a workshop a couple of months ago. It is exhilarating, culminating many years of wishing to be a writer/author.

I have been using many of Apple's Apps to help increase my productivity. The main one that has been keeping me on track this week is the Calendar. 

Last weekend, I sorted out a writing program for the next two weeks around my work shifts. As the Calendar replicates itself across all my Apple products, iPhone, Apple Watch and MacBook, it keeps me on my writing toes, especially as I have shared it with Kathy. I thought of automating some insignificant behind-the-scenes bits, like file saving. I haven't set that up yet, but that may be a task for this weekend.

I wrote about Morning Pages writing a few weeks ago, before my recent bout with COVID-19. I write three pages of free writing each morning. That dropped off for a while, although I did write a few during our trips away. Thankfully, I have started writing them again this week, even before my early shifts. They are a relaxing start to the morning and clear my mind for the day ahead. I'm writing this now after Morning Pages and before preparing for work. 

'You can only be a writer if you are writing' is something that I have always said, and here I am writing.

Also, this week, I attended a Zoom workshop by author Jenny Kane. A few of us meet every other Tuesday and work through some writing exercises. This week, we worked on character flaws and working on giving rounded characters for our stories. I must admit, it is something that I hadn't considered for the characters in Beasting Dartmoor. However, I came away on Tuesday evening with several ideas, some of which I can start working on immediately and others I will need to save for the first edit at the beginning of the new year.

I will also return to my Zoom writing hour with William on Sunday afternoon.

I enjoy both of these Zoom writing sessions. It is nice to be with other writers. After all, writing can be lonely unless you are part of a team writing for a continuing drama (Soap) or something similar to Game of Thrones, that is.

That is where I am with my various writing projects at the moment. I'm always open to further projects should anyone wish to get in touch. But these projects are helping me to keep writing, and that is what I like doing.

Happy Birthday, all fellow Royal Marines. We don't look too bad for being 359.

Next week - Characters and their flaws 

An Apple a Day Keeps the Covid away - It Doesn't, But Read On

Firstly, apologies for not posting a piece for you last weekend. A dose of COVID-19, two weeks in France with a week of work in between, finally did for me. I had plenty of sleep over that weekend, anyway.

October has already been a busy month for Apple with their latest releases. As I pitched a few weeks ago, the new iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max have received much acclaim. The updated cameras have received excellent reviews. 

The current iPhone 15 has seen a price drop. A colleague at work took advantage of our salary sacrifice scheme, ordered one, and is excited for it to arrive. It may be worth a search around if you are in the market for a new phone. I have also seen some reasonable SIM-only offers online as well.

Also, this month, Apple has pushed out their new operating systems, IOS 17 for iPads and iPhones, WatchOS10 for Apple Watches and MacOS Sonoma for MacBooks.

One noticeable thing with the new lock screens is that there is much more information. Perhaps not a big thing, but it looks ok to me. Sonoma now supports widgets. This update means you can have the same widgets on your MacBook as on your iPhone.

The screen savers now have a 'rolling' feature. My present screen saver looks like it's ply through a forest. If you shoot a photograph on an iPhone using the live feature, which gives you a burst of photos, you can use that as a screen saver, and the OS will use that burst of pictures to make a screen saver photo that appears to move.

Apple's integrated operating systems are proving excellent for writers. I may have written at the time, but whilst I was in France on a day visit to Dunkirk, I managed to use the free wifi and write that week's blog piece in the Pages app and schedule it to be published, all from my iPhone SE running IOS17.

For iPad users, there has, this week, been a new Apple Pencil. Many were expecting the reveal of the iPad Gen 11, but a pencil it is. Briefly reading through a few reviews, the thoughts are that this update is an improvement on the version that required charging via the lightning/USB-C cable, which was rather ugly and had few favourable reviews.

There we are, then. It's nice to be back on the blog, and a big thank you to all who come here to read my pieces.

Next week, I will update you on 'Beasting Dartmoor' and my writing aims and targets for the next few months.

Don't be a Monk - Focus. Get some Focus to increase Productivity

I read an interesting article on a website earlier this week. 'The people going 'monk mode' to limit social media use'. It rang a bell with me as although social media is part of a writer's toolbox, it does get in the way when you need to get your head down and crack on with a word count.

The article focused on a human rights lawyer using the Freedom app. It is a blocking app, and several others are available across operating systems.

Someone who found the lure of Facebook too much whilst at University, so much so that he nearly missed submitting his dissertation, developed the Freedom app. 

I like to be quiet and not disturbed when writing, although I'm writing this in the office at work during my lunch break. But for those encompassed in the Apple Inc. environment, on MacBooks, iPads & iPhones, there is a functionality that can do all this without downloading apps. 

 Focus Modes help concentrate the mind on writing or whatever you have set it up for. By going to settings and scrolling down to the Focus button, it walks you through the process. I will link to YouTube for a VLOG by the extremely excellent William Gallagher.

Several built-in focuses include 'Driving' and 'Do Not Disturb'. I have set myself a customised Writing Focus. It switches off access to the net and only allows calls and messages from my wife.

There is a but, though. A word of warning: you could miss calls whilst in a Focus. If you have set your Focus not to receive any calls, you could and will miss any important calls. This very hand whilst driving and certain apps will send a message to say that you are driving. My phone automatically goes into Driving Focus once the car is moving.

You can automate when, where and how Focus starts using Shortcuts, another installed app. I have yet to get myself around Shortcuts at the moment. I will put that research into my writing diary, which can be the subject of a future blog piece.

Today, we will take the tram to Stade Pierre Mauroy to watch the England vs. Samoa game. As always, I will be the one in the England shirt. You can spot me on the TV.