Another Year Older, Another Year Wiser, Another Year Immature-er · 5:38pm Feb 17th, 2016
The love: I'm feelin' it.
So, today marks my twenty fourth lap around that yellow thing up there in the sky, and I celebrated it by looking at cats on the internet while at work. And as the time-old tradition goes, I'm supposed to impart some modicum of wisdom upon anyone who lends an ear about how you shouldn't load your dishwasher with Dawn, or that you should rinse blood out of your clothes with saline (9gNaCl/L, or about 1.8 teaspoons of table salt) and not tap water, so that it doesn't stain (my little isotonic solution: avoiding hemolysis is magic!). But I figure I could lend a smidge of advice I recently discovered related to writing, since, you know, this is a fanfiction website.
If you're like me, you write about ponies. If you're even more like me, you spend a good bit of your free time sitting in front of your computer writing about said ponies. And if we're long-lost twins separated at birth, you stare at that blank white page with a slack jaw mentally saying 'how the fudge do I write this part?' over and over and over. Then, after a good thirty minutes you look back at the two or three sentences you've written and say 'this is crap,' and proceed to tinker with your words, until it looks semi-presentable to maybe your closest, most trustworthy, least judgmental editor/compadre/brochacho/partner in crime. And then the arduous cycle repeats itself, leaving you burnt out of writing after a meager two- maybe three-hundred words and a couple hours of blahhhhhh... But, if you really are like me, you hate writing on your phone.
Which is why I love it.
I hate writing on my phone. I loathe it. Can't stand it. It's clunky the way screen always slides to accomodate the keypad, the touch keys are slightly too small, and ever since the newest update, Windows (yeah, I have a Windows phone and it's ten times cooler than your appledroid crap ever will be!) added that ‘slide your finger around the screen like you’re imitating your doctor’s signature’ monstrosity of a feature that thinks my quick typing is me trying to do exactly that and I have to constantly backspace to retype ‘the’ instead of ‘TTY e’ it became all the more difficult to speed type (I’m not venting; I swear!).
There’s nothing fun about writing on a screen smaller than my hand, and yet that’s the beauty of it. When I write on my phone, I’m caught in the troubles of writing on my phone rather than those of writing. Instead of slogging through all my worries of word choice or if each and every sentence is a masterpiece of literature that someone will hopefully hang in a museum one day, I’m reviling the idea of editing. The hassle of doing so on a phone leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that I don’t even consider it, which leaves me to simply spill words on a page.
My inner editor sees the words, broom in hand, ready to sweep away the garbage, but then remembers those tiny keys and the finicky autocorrect and nopes right on out of my head. It’s so liberating to just write without the constant beatdown my brain is wont to give me day in and day out whenever I sit in front of my computer to write.
Poor word choice? Meh. Lackluster descriptions? That can be buffed out later. Repetitive sentence openers? ‘He’ is easier than whatever word autocorrect decides to pull out of the powerball air box at that moment.
As an example, here’s that wordcounter from my profile page that I’ve been keeping for my new-year’s resolution:
(I love that gif)
That ‘words this week’ count is from two days’ writing. All of it I did between specimens at work on average workload days. Excluding the most recent writeoff, that’s the most I’ve written in such a short span since Transcendence.
It lacks the polish of an editing pass, but, really, the real elephant in the room when it comes to writing (for me, at least) is initially getting the idea on paper. Editing’s the easy part.
So if you really are like me, take this as a suggestion to try writing your rough drafts on your phone and leave the detail work for the computer later. It may just surprise you.
To those of you that stuck around to the end because of that Reading Rainbow tag, remember that humanization I did of its in-story poem One Full Day a few years back? Well, I’m working on smoothing out the pony version so that it has better flowing meter and that the poem itself is a little more imaginative in its word choice (nothing major, I promise, so no freakouts like with Transcendence's rewrite, please 
). I’ll get that out shortly, hopefully. Additionally, I’ve got something else in the works that’ll sure knock your socks off. Details to come, but get your hype ready, because you’re going to need it.
Happy Birthday! Hope it's a good one!
Happy birthday!
~Lunatone
Happy birthday m8!
Happy birthday!
And it is true, phone-scripting is where I have
pileddumpedwritten most of my work. Once the idea is down, then comes revision #1, then (hopefully) off to the editors.I really am like you. I used to write on my phone when I worked at the local movie theater. Could write about 1-300 words over the course of an entire workday, in little five-minute intervals. But the hassle of dealing with the Gdocs mobile app back in 2015 was a massive pain the the balls. Ironically , it's gotten slightly better now, but I'm back in university and spending about six hours a day in front of my computer, so I don't really have any excuse to write on my phone now.
Maybe I'll have to make some up.
And holy shit! You turned 24 today!? I turned 25 last month on January 17th!
Happy birthday!
I tried to write on my phone once and nearly threw it through a window. Maybe I'll try it again with a little more . . . patience. Or something.
Wait what? You have on the same day birthday as me? Woo!
Incidentally, I am writing this from a phone. I'm not superstitious but having two obscure coincidences at once feels pretty damn eerie...
Happy birthday!
I feel old
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Thanks!
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Heh, my phone came with a mobile app called One Note. Really nice since it's offline, but still has quick self-emailing capabilities so I can send myself stuff piecemeal if I want. And a happy belated birthday to another 17'er! Three of the four people in my family are born on the 17th of their respective months. It's weird.
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We share this glorious day with three people from my workplace, Michael Jordon, and Larry the Cable Guy. If that doesn't make you feel special, I don't know what will.
“¡Get your hooves up, party’s starting out right now!”
“¡Everypony, everypony get down!”
“¡Time to make a wish, better make it right now!”
“¡It’s been an year and today is your birthdayparty!”
“¡Make a wish, it’s your birthday!”
“¡Make a wish, it’s your birthdayparty!”
“¡Make a wish, it’s your birthday!”
“¡Make a wish, it’s your birthdayparty!“
I am absolutely excited about your reworking of One Full Day. I see it as one of your best pieces and, although we don't need one, it's always nice to have an excuse to read it again. Let us know when it's done!