Movie Night and Keyboards

Yesterday was the second day in January that I exceeded my word count goal. One of things that helped was to get in more than one writing session. The first one was early in the day. I made sure my laptop was always in reach of me, in this case I had been watching YouTube while in bed and just picked it up and banged out over 800 words in a short period of time.

Later, after my wife had gone to bed, I descended into my dungeon lair to get some more word written on a short story. I had a better feel for where the story was headed at this point, so the writing went a bit better. I added another 1200 or so words to it. This included being interrupted by one of the kids who decided they needed IT help and 12:30 AM.

No one respects the cone of silence writing demands. Particularly if their PC is no longer connecting to their Xbox controller in the middle of the night. After spending some precious writing time do unpaid IT work, I determined it was a hardware issue and guided her to Amazon for new Bluetooth module.

Even after the interruption, I still managed to get in some more writing. I cracked a glass of my favourite vineyard to ease the pain. I am very cautious about combining alcohol with writing. There are too many case histories of well-known alcoholic writers for me to ignore this. But damn, occasionally, its feels nice to sip a beautiful Baco Noir while making stuff up.

No apologies for the rare indulgence.

Tonight, the family are heading out to the movies to see Zootopia 2. Three out of four us work in the animation industry, so going to see an animated film isn’t unusual for us. But, since there are often wait times for even the commercials to start, I am going to try and fill part of that time by bring a mobile writing set up.

I have a few options.

I can choose between a Pomera Dm250. Think cut a laptop—in have and get rid of all the Wi-Fi and movies. It has a two-tone screen and a small keyboard. The screen is smaller too. It has a 24-hour continual use battery life. My biggest gripe is the screen size and the lack of back lit keys. I often bring a reading light to alleviate that issue. It fit nicely on my lap and has a nice dark mode for the screen.

Next is my phone and my Doohoeek Universal Bluetooth Keyboard. It has a built-in stand for a phone, a smaller keyboard than the Pomera, and the advantage of being lighter and more compact. It can easily fit in an inside jacket pocket or even in a cargo pants pocket. It’s a little less stable on your lap, better suited to a tabletop. The screen will be my iPhone and since we always have those with us it makes for a nice option.

I could just bring my laptop. A small 13-inch X1 Carbon by Lenovo. But it’s still a big bit of kit to bring to the movies. I have and 12.9-inch iPad that could be paired with any keyboard, but it isn’t the lightest either.

I could just type on my phone using the screen keyboard.

In a few weeks I’ll be receiving a device called a BYOK. It stands for bring your own keyboard. It’s a little phone sized device that only does text and has long battery life. It will pair with most Bluetooth keyboards. I ‘m looking forward to giving that a spin.

And by now most of you are screaming… Paper and Pen Brian! Paper and Pen!

I think I’ve settled on the iPhone paired with the Doohoeek Universal Bluetooth Keyboard. The iPhone has the advantage of being able to use Google Docs as well as Microsoft Word and have them seamlessly sink to all my devices via the cloud.

Decision made.

Off to the movies.