9/28/06: Writing-related program activities

[davidlevine]

Word count: 3113 | Since last entry: 877

Another post-Hugo rejection in today's mail, this one from F&SF. Alas, he just bought another post-Katrina ghost story. I'd been afraid that might happen.

That made three stories requiring resubmission, so I went ahead and resubmitted them. As it happened, the story that F&SF just bounced went to Asimov's, and the story Asimov's bounced earlier in the week went to F&SF. The Jupiter story, which I'd intended to send to Asimov's as soon as they replied to the previous story, had to be held back again because I wanted to send the post-Katrina story to Asimov's before it gets any staler than it already is. So rather than let it languish any longer, I sent it to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show -- my first submission there. The story is really a better fit for Baen's Universe, but that market's closed until further notice (though I now see that it could reopen as early as October 1... oh well, the story's in the email already).

It took entirely too much time to update my spreadsheet, decide where to send the three stories, and prepare the packages and emails. But I did get some more writing done. The action is cracking along nicely -- in fact, I think it might be moving too fast, because the main character has some backstory that I have to lay in so that the climax will make emotional sense. (I don't have a written outline for this one, but by now I know everything that is going to happen.) Ponder ponder ponder.

Changing topics completely... I'm considering changing my phone -- I want to carry a single device instead of my web-enabled phone, Palm V, and camera. It has to have a QWERTY keyboard, and I would really prefer PalmOS to Windows Mobile, so it comes down to a Treo 650 (Cingular) or Treo 700p (Verizon or Sprint). But it seems that the minimum calling plan I can get that supports this phone's data capabilities costs $60 (Cingular, 450 minutes + 5MB, or Sprint, 450 minutes + unlimited data), or $80 (Cingular or Verizon, 450 minutes + unlimited data) per month. My current plan (Cingular) is $40 for more minutes than I ever use + 1MB (I use maybe 50 minutes a month, but 1MB is a little too small). $240 or $480 more a year seems like a lot to pay for email and web on my phone. Any advice?

Comments

[kateyule.livejournal.com]

Do you really mean wank? or maybe wonk?

p.s. we should really go to bed now

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

It seems fitting to have a ghost story that keeps being sent from one editor to the next. It's too good to disappear, but there's always some reason why they can't see it or won't believe in it. An unquiet ghost story.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

I've been told by a friend in the know that Baen's likely won't reopen until December 1st at the earliest.

[djonn]

I was looking at the superphone issue recently, when it looked as if my iPaq had died on me (it got better, fortunately). Amusingly, while everything else in the techno-world has gotten smaller/cheaper/snazzier, PDAs and PDA-phone crosses seem -- if anything -- to have backpedaled slightly in terms of specs. vs. cost. All the portable-gadget innovation R&D appears to have gone into iPods and their clones.

As far as I can tell from my own cursory shopping, there is no pocket-sized device that effectively merges all three functions -- phone/camera/data -- really effectively, at least not via the cellular/PDA route. There are phone/PDA combos, but their camera features are way substandard. There are beginning to be camera phones with not-entirely-laughable feature sets, but they lack PDA/data features. As for a PDA/camera cross, I didn't even see such an animal.

However, some thoughts.

One, I think the key phrase in the foregoing is "pocket-sized device". For budget reasons, I didn't look closely during my recent browse at the Tablet PC segment of the market (or its emerging cousin, the "ultra-mobile PC" segment). From a really quick look just now, those two classes of device seem to be gaining power and function to a much greater degree than traditional PDA devices.

Two, it seems to me that if you can get to the Internet via one of those platforms, you might -- emphasis might, as I haven't looked into this at all -- be set up to handle mobile-phone connection via one of the VoIP providers (i.e. Skype), bypassing the expensive cellular plans. The joker in that deck would be broadband wireless connectivity, but depending on one's usage patterns, that might or might not be a major stumbling block.

And while a tablet/ultra-mobile PC almost certainly won't merge in the camera function, it may well have enough computing and storage power to substantially replace a traditional laptop/notebook PC -- which could help justify the potentially significant expense of the device vs. a high-end cellphone/PDA combo.

All of which may or may not be helpful, but it may be worth considering.

[davidlevine]

For my purposes "pocket-sized" is an absolute requirement and "camera" is defined as "capable of taking a picture of a whiteboard in which the text can be read", which is a very low hurdle. So the Treo suits my needs well, and a tablet PC isn't even in the ballpark. Thanks, though.