No, Alphie isn't my latest hero.
Alphie is short for AlphaSmart, the whiz-bang word processor run on 3 AA batteries which you can fit in your handbag and take anywhere.
After hearing other authors sing Alphie's praises, I bought one at the 2004 RWAus conference in Sydney and I must say, I fell in love like everyone else.
Alphie is portable and light, two major attractions and I wrote the bulk of my first single title on him while staying at my folks for a week.
Since then, I've used Alphie spasmodically, preferring to sit at my PC every night rather than cuddle up with Alphie on the couch.
Then came yesterday...I don't usually write on the weekends but I was going to my folks for the day and thought I'd take Alphie along just in case I got a free minute while they played with my toddler.
Well, I had about an hour of play-free time and managed to get quite a few words down with Alphie. The beauty of him is that you don't know how much you've actually done till you upload to your PC so can't edit as you go.
Thanks to Alphie, I wrote 3250 words yesterday. I had no idea I'd done that much but it's amazing how fast the words flow when you're not editing as you go (something I'm prone to do a bit!)
So for anyone who wants to up your word count, I'd strongly recommend having an Alphie of your own (though I think he's been superceded by a newer whiz-bang model called Neo?)
Whatever, he's worth his light weight in gold!
2 comments:
I looove the clankiness! I even use it when on the train going into the city. And the clank must send the other commuters around the bend but I don't care!
20 minutes into the city and 20 minutes out and I did 2000 words today on my Alphie. Sigh... I love him too Nic!
Alphie is clanky and my wrists don't appreciate that feature of him, but he more than makes up for that shortfall with stopping me from editing along the way :)
Great going Ally! Alphie rules!!
Post a Comment