Category Archives: Writing

QI Software, Tech Talk, Writing

Introducing… Write-O-Matic 9000

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So, over the years we’ve gotten many complaints about Writer.app’s name. Many many many.

So we decided to change it.

Write-O-Matic 9000
Write-O-Matic 9000

Introducing the Write-O-Matic 9000, available on the Mac App Store.

It’s our first experiment in paid software. For the low low price of $0.99 you can get all the functionality (or intentional non-functionality) of the original Writer.app, but support a small software shop by doing so.

It’s like the local, organic, sustainable version of getting and using software — the tool will still help you stay on track by focusing on the words to come, rather than the words past, and you’ll feel amazing for helping a very very small development shop.

As a blessed App Store app we can’t create a network location which will shut off all internet access for you any more, so we have a tool, which you should only have to run once, to do that, called the Empty Network Location Creator. It will guide you through the process of creating a very productive Network Location, or do it for you. Write-O-Matic 9000, like it’s predecessor, will try and switch to this location before you start typing, to help you stay focused and away from the big bad internet.

Bruins, Reading, Writing

The History of the Mayan Ball League

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As you may have heard, I’ve recently published a work of historical fiction called “The History of the Mayan Ball League.”

During the rash of concussions players were suffering during the course of the National Hockey League (they used to play games, you know), I began thinking about the predecessors of that professional sports league, and stumbled upon ancient documents outlining the history of the Mesoamerican ball game. The ball game had, unbeknownst to many anthropologists, a professional league, back in the day, stretching across Central America and beyond. Of course, it had slight differences to the professional sports leagues of today — losers were occasionally beheaded, players were paid by chickens in an escrow account, and reporting of the day’s games was done in an Incan-style newspaper which was excellent news for the alpaca farmers — but the similarities to our own sporting entertainment today was shocking. With the lockout of the National Hockey League (one way to avoid concussions, I suppose), we can learn even *more* lessons from our forebears, as they faced very similar struggles, and dealt with them in their own special way. At the very least this book should be given to Gary Bettman, the owners, Donald Fehr, and the players’ union, in the hopes that they may model their own collective bargaining agreements on the pioneering approaches the Mayans took.

Of course, we all know about the Mayans today, and what this particular month means, in the grand scheme of things. So I humbly submit this vital work to the study of Mayan culture and pro sports, even though you may not be able to review it before the whole world ends.

I would be most humbled if you, sir (non-gender-specific ‘sir’ meant, of course), plunked down $0.99 of your hard-earned cash to read this amazing story of love, loss, and the first bobble head dolls.

For you Kindlers: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AN3CA0M/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_OGwYqb0TR6F8A

If you are Amazon-averse, there is also a NOOK version: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-history-of-the-mayan-ball-league-matthew-hanlon/1045434848?ean=2940015723922

 

If you are both Amazon *and* Barnes & Noble averse, there is a Kobo version: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-History-Mayan-Ball-League/book-N9KSvI-kwU2Xw0H1hcpREQ/page1.html?s=3QVUTyA3rUG6chx4iW5Hog&r=1

If you are Amazon and Barnes & Noble *and* Kobo-averse (I won’t ask what they all did to make you so), there’s an iBook version with some extra visual material, as you’d expect from something on Apple’s store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/history-mayan-ball-league/id587278189?ls=1

So get to it. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell your family, even the members you don’t like so much, like Frank. Please. I’m begging you.

Red Sox, Writing

Audiobooks

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So I’m toying around with recording the audio version of “Just Add Water,” from Final Fenway Fiction. For editing, I have a lot of PDF apps on my iPad, many of which do audio notes. I also have GarageBand. I was hoping to use GB, but it turns out either I was doing it wrong or it wasn’t possible to record audio in the background while I read the book from iBooks or one of the PDF apps.

In the end, well, the middle, I’ve been using Notability, which allows you to take audio notes as you flick down the story.

It’s not too bad. Going to need to edit my ehms and uhhhs out, but I’ve got a good start to work with, anyway.

Tech Talk, Writing

Dashboarding

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Right, it’s been a while… how does this work again? Right. Anyway.

I’ve been following Mark Bernstein’s posts on building a dashboard in Tinderbox and enjoying them… and puzzling out how to implement them, in a lot of cases.

One thing I wanted to do, once I figured out how the example he gave in the post above worked, was not have to type in all the random words I wanted as notes in a note in my Tinderbox file.

So what I did was use Tinderbox’s ability to run command line to grab a random word out of the built-in system dictionary. I couldn’t quite get the perl one-liner working inline, so what I did was I created a file called randomWord and put the following in it:

#!/bin/sh

word=`perl -e 'open IN, "</usr/share/dict/words";rand($.) < 1 && ($n=$_) while <IN>;print $n'`

echo $word
I made it executable and dumped it in /usr/bin.
Then, in my Word of the Day note in Tinderbox, I added the following in the Rule section of the note (modified slightly from Mark’s example – visible when you right-click on a note and choose to the Rename menu item):
if($Date!="today") {


 $Text=runCommand("randomWord", "");date="today";}
And I was done. A daily word of the day from the built-in dictionary… now to just find the time to write in that Tinderbox file everyday…
NaNoWriMo, Writing

Final Days SALE SALE SALE!

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Writer.app has been heavily discounted now for all you NaNoWriMoers stuck at thirty, twenty, or ten thousand words with only days remaining and your eyes bleeding from surfing the web, staring into space, brushing your teeth, or doing virtually anything but writing!

You can now get this amazing application for just NOTHING! Nothing at all! It’s like Christmas come early! Or late, if your local stores have also had Christmas decorations and sales on since August 9th.

I’m telling you, it’s a great way to get that little self-editor out of your head and just let the words pour onto the paper. Or if they’re not pouring, at least they’re being dumped, unceremoniously, onto the paper. One. Word. At. A. Time.

Listen, I’ve sacrificed my NaNoWriMo for your own sake, tweaking the app a little bit to make it that much more pleasant to work in because I knew I’d be eyeballs deep in something else all month (and for the foreseeable future). Please. I’m begging you. Think of the children…

QI Software, Writing

Writer.app One dot Four dot THREE

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Tinkering in Writer.app last night, I had a couple of usability niggles that kept digging and digging at me. So, of course, I had to tinker with the app. And Acorn. The result was this:

200811122055.jpg

[From Writer.app]

A set of new icons for the toolbar that look startlingly better on Leopard, and a new delete mode where, if you press the delete key twice, instead of it sitting dumbly by, doing nothing, it’ll delete the entire word just before the cursor. You can turn this behavior off… you just need to do it from the command line, for the moment. [defaults write com.qisoftware.Writer BWRetainOldDeleteWordsOnMultipleDeleteKeyPressesBehavior -bool YES for the terminally curious]

At any rate, I figured I’d push this out in the middle of November, as this thing is really the sort of thing that helps writers (well, one at any rate) focus on just pushing forward. No worrying about little mistakes, or going back over the story and editing incessantly, you just are forced forward, forced to get a whole lot of words on the page which you may just mass delete later, but at least you got them down somewhere, first. Or you might run the product by an editor (I’m available at very reasonable rates for editing small to large fiction, non-fiction projects, papers, resumes, grocery lists, you name it).

So go check it out. Get writing.

General, QI Software, Writing

Turns Out I AM a Baby…

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Turns out I am a baby, I guess:
200811112349.jpg

Had to take that “I’m not a baby, for the love of Pete, please let me switch between apps” option off because I was switching between apps far too much. While I don’t think I’m quite doing NaNoWriMo, I managed to get in a good session of NaChildrensBookWriMo this evening (2k words or so), all thanks to Writer.app and that blessed preference to not trust the writer in any way, shape, or form.

Reading, Red Sox, Writing

Fenway Fiction Reading and Signing, October 18th 2008

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Adam Pacther and Matthew Hanlon will be reading and signing copies of Fenway Fiction and Further Fenway Fiction Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 1pm at Charlton Public Library.

Bring your copies of either Fenway Fiction, maybe get a sneak peek of the third installment of the series, and watch us shake so many hands you’ll think we were running for office (*). I’ll take requests/votes, through the comments, for the following different approaches I may take to the reading:

  • Read from “The Johnny Damon” story.
  • Read from the “Bellyitcher” story.
  • Read from as-yet published story slated for inclusion in the third book of the series at this time.
  • Wear a French beret, despite not being a) French or b) fond of berets.
  • Bring a haddock to give out to the first member of the audience to shout out the finishing words to a sentence I’m in the middle of reading.
  • Along the same lines, pause dramatically in the middle of a line and hold the mic (or imaginary mic, as I think we’ll be forgoing those for this reading) out towards the audience to encourage them to sing along.
  • Obtain a pair of (fake, this is a recession, after all) diamond studded sunglasses and proceed to read the story (or conduct the sing-along) with them on the whole time.
  • Sign copies of the book with my left hand (I’m right-handed).
  • Sign copies of the book with my left foot (I haven’t tried, but I’m pretty sure I’m just about unable to write my name with my left foot).
  • As if I were running for office (*), attempt to kiss any and all babies in the audience (**).
  • Attempt to tell a heart-warming and personal story about growing up and navigating the summer reading boot camps at the Charlton Public Library as a boy.
  • Slip the word “slugabed” into the reading somewhere, despite it not appearing in any story (expecting the title, perhaps) I’ve ever written.

See you there, folks.


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* disclaimer: I am not running for any kind of office.

** Babies are determined to be children 2 years and younger and fit a certain cuteness criteria.

Writing

The Bell’s Tolling for You, I Think

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80/1001

[From Matthew Michael Hanlon | Red Room Writer Profile | Red Room]

Look, kids, that’s where it is. I’m number 80 out of 1001. Has an okay ring to it… but wouldn’t it sound so much nicer in the top 50? Top 10?

We don’t have much time, but if you love me, if you really, really love me, you’ll want to get clicking. Get your friends clicking. Set up a contest-rigging outfit somewhere off-shore (Iceland? Plum Island?) to get clicking. Just click click click on that link above and get my good old RedRoom Author ranking up into the top ten and I will throw a fantastic party, I promise. Heck, get me into the top 50 and I’ll throw a mildly amusing party. I will attempt, with all the powers at my beck and call, to have a live chicken at the party. Two for the top ten goal.

But you need to do it soon. Because, you see, the clicks that matter happen before midnight, tonight. CDT. Which I believe is some fictional timezone they invented for the vast emptiness that is the middle of the United States. Why an empty bunch of land needs a timezone, I don’t know, so don’t ask me, but there you have it.

And drop me a comment or something (here or on the RedRoom, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things), and I’ll try to do something especially nice for you.