It’s follow-up post day here on the blog, it seems. First I wrote about games, now I’m writing about writing.

Last night, along with some others, I went to a tea shop to write. As mentioned in my earlier post, I’ve found that leaving my apartment usually yields better results and I was hoping for more corroboration of that. I brought with me my laptop and a list of the projects I wanted to work on.

It went very well. In just over two hours I had over 2K words, probably closer to 2.5K, not including sections that I had revised. I worked on two short stories (gaining some momentum in their plots and basically figuring out the ending of one) and two novels (finishing out two chapters). You might think that it was counterproductive to work on so much, but I was able to get enough down to help make them more substantial, but I left off with enough that I could easily jump back into them.

For me, it was a very productive evening. And it made me enthusiastic to continue to get writing done. To keep working on these stories. And having multiple projects on the burners means that I can always switch to something else when one of them cools off.

I’m beginning to think that this might be an optimum strategy for me – aim for about a half hour every day, but then fit in 2 hour (or more) longer sessions where I can put down more words. Not only would it result in steadily producing more, but it would be easier to work around my schedule (because as much as I love writing, I need to have a life, too).

The thing that works best for me in these situations, is that I feel more compelled to write. I sometimes chat for a bit with my companions, but eventually I turn back to the screen. And it actually helps sometimes if the other people in the tea shop are loud or annoying because it only makes me want to put on my headphones and completely immerse myself in what I’m working on.

Next month, some of my fellow writers and I will be going on a 4-5 day writing retreat like we do every year. It’s a similar idea – you’re surrounded by other people writing and away from your home and the usual distractions, so you tend to put more time into the writing. And you have people around to talk about writing or issues you’re having or whatever. But I find that to be a helpful exercise.

So, since I’ve been asking questions in these things lately – for you writers out there, do you regularly write with others? Does it help? Do you find that it helps you focus?

So, as expected, I jumped right into Mass Effect 2 after finishing the first game. It was just too tempting, and I wanted to see how my choices from the first game influenced the second. The way they handle this is pretty interesting, allowing you to import your character history while also allowing you to modify your character the way a new player would.

It had been something I was hoping for. I had started Mass Effect with the default appearance for Commander Shepard. Normally I spend a good deal of time crafting my characters and their appearances in RPGs, but for whatever reason, I just decided to not bother with ME1. I think I was intending just to try it out and then go back and create a better character. Only I never did.

ME2 gave me the chance to change all of that, but when fiddling with the appearances, I couldn’t find one that I really liked. Plus, I felt like I had gotten used to the way Shepard looked. The same thing applied to “class” choice. I was able to change it, but I felt that the guy I had been playing was a soldier and that should carry through. So I kept things mostly the same.

The gameplay, however, is very different. One of the biggest changes is that most of the buttons used in ME1 are different in ME2 with the exception of the buttons and triggers. But even the Start Menu has been reorganized so that I kept pushing left when I was meant to push right and so on. It was a little disorienting, especially after getting used to the gameplay of the first game.

Many other things are different. They ditched the overheating of weapons for clips which act like normal ammo. Weapons and upgrades are handled very differently. Armor, too.

But the story that I appreciated from the first game is still damned engrossing. The direction they take this game is fascinating and quickly had me hooked. A small spoiler – they jump the game 2 years into the future which adds a certain disorienting element to the game. I thought the opening was handled very well.

So it looks like I”ll be playing all the way through this one before tackling another game (aside from Red Dead Redemption, which I always keep on the side).

So far, so good…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the tools I use for writing (both hardware and software) and the way I use them. And I’ve realized that I might need to change my tactics to work with both the way my brain works and the way that my tools work.

For example, though I have a computer at home, I rarely use it for long writing sessions. I find that when I’m at home, it’s too easy to be distracted. I do write at home, but I’m nowhere near as productive as I am when I’m out and about. So as a result, I have been trying to spend more time writing in places that aren’t my apartment.

I have a laptop which I had been carting around for writing, but I have a long commute and often have a lot of things to carry and sometimes lugging around the laptop would feel like too much. Additionally, the battery life isn’t the best if I’m in a place without outlets.

So when I was able to get my hands on an iPad, I thought that would be a great solution. A lot of people peg it as a device for consuming rather than producing, but it can be used as a writing machine. I paired with with a bluetooth keyboard and got a stand and it became a lighter device that I could carry with me in a smaller amount of space. With apps like Pages and QuickOffice I could even access my documents directly from Dropbox and work on them (though only QuickOffice allowed me to save the files back again, and then only if I had an internet connection).

So I could, and did, write on the iPad. But as I just mentioned, there were sometimes issues with saving. And I’d have to email my files part of the time to myself. Which just makes version control all the more difficult.

Additionally, lately I’ve been working more on novels than on short stories. And while I write short stories in Word (or a comparable alternative), I work on novels exclusively with Scrivener. Scrivener has no iPad version, so I’m confined to my laptop if I want the complete functionality that Scrivener gives me (and I usually do).*

Also, the other day, just after working for an hour on a chapter of my novel in QuickOffice, and basically rewriting it, I lost all of my changes when the app crashed. Suddenly they were all gone and I had no way to recover them. That was one of the worst writing moments I’ve had in a long time.

So I’m thinking that for me, right now, the best solution is to use my laptop when at all possible. Yes, it’s heavier, but right now it has a lot of advantages for me. It has a built-in keyboard for one, one which allows for tabs in whatever program I use. Dropbox files save locally to the hard drive when there’s no internet connection. Scrivener and Word both save regularly to help prevent loss of data. And I have access to Scrivener in the first place, which is a big help. Battery life can be a problem, but lately that’s been less of a problem if I make an effort to keep it fully charged. I’m rarely writing anywhere for more than a couple of hours without an outlet anyway. Do I always have an internet connection? No. But then again that can be as much a distraction as a boon (and I can technically use my phone if I need to email files from Dropbox).

I like having options. And I like the various ways I could make the iPad work for me. But sometimes simplicity is more valuable. Sometimes the ability to just sit down, open up the laptop and start typing where I left off is better than having to configure things and set them up and then sync and compare them. At least this is how I feel right now. I reserve the right to change my mind in the future.

Anyone else out there have a way of working that they had to hone or fine tune? Or are there tools that you use that you find essential?

* Scrivener 2 now allows syncing with certain text apps, like Simple Note, but again, you don’t have access to Scrivener’s features this way.

One of the nice side effects of having a couple weeks off over the holidays was that I got to play video games for the first time in months. I have this habit of getting a new game, playing it a bit, then never getting around to finishing it. The last game I played all the way through was Uncharted 2, and mostly because it was so engrossing and entertaining that I could not put it down.

This time it was Mass Effect. I’m a fan of Bioware’s games and I had barely scratched the surface of the game and the scripted RPG elements seemed just what I was looking for. It was only the combat system that had given me pause because, frankly, I hated it. And I spent a lot of my time dying on silly encounters when what I really wanted to do was experience the story and interact with characters through dialogue and choices.

This time when I played, I checked out the settings and realized I had it set on regular difficulty. So, feeling like the combat system was getting in the way of enjoying the game, I set in on easy. And that was the right decision. I finished the game last night and had a great time doing it.

Most impressive for me, of course, was the story of the game. I know it’s no surprise to find well-written games these days, but it’s not hard to see why the game industry does so well and why games rival movies now in terms of entertainment dollars. I found myself wishing that we’d have more movies of a similar caliber instead of the constantly recycled Hollywood formula.

Normally I like to take a break between games like this. Like I would end up playing an RPG like Fallout instead or a shooter or something different. But I’m really tempted to just jump right into Mass Effect 2. I enjoyed the last game that much.

Of course there’s always Red Dead Redemption if I feel like a short break. I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of that game.

What games are you enjoying and playing? What are the best written games that you’ve played?

Now for the writing goals. As previously mentioned, Chuck Palahniuk was the one who urged us to do this at Clarion West. And he urged us to shoot big. So I am. He also urged us to state our goals definitively. So, here goes.

I will sell six stories.

I will complete 3 novels.*

I will sell (at least) one novel.

I will be SFWA eligible (a cheat, really, since the other goals will probably ensure this).

I will successfully complete a collaboration that sells.

I think that does it for goals for me, at least right now. But I will revisit these from time to time, just to see how I’m doing.

It may seem ambitious, but why not be?

* By “complete” I mean turn out finished drafts. At least one of these is a previously written novel that I am in the process of extensively rewriting.