Fantasy author Peter Brett tapped out a 100,000 word novel on one of those industrial-grade HP iPAQs — bigger than a standard smartphone, but a thumb-board all the same!
In late 2005, HP came out with the iPAQ smartphone 6515 with Windows Mobile which did the same thing as the Palm Pilot, but had a full keyboard so you didn’t have to write with the stylus–you could just type. I thought it was the greatest thing ever and bought it right away. As I got faster and faster typing with my thumbs, I wound up just writing prose on it. After doing that for a while, and realizing I could do it from anywhere, I made a commitment to myself to write on the train everyday.
He would walk through busy streets, cranking out prose. Eventually, his text files got too long for the old HP to cope with, and he upgraded to the iPaq 900.
“One of the main reasons I never bought the iPhone,” he told Laptop Mag, “was that I tried writing with virtual buttons, and it just couldn’t keep up with me.”
Novelist Pens First Book on Smart Phone; Succeeds In Making Us Look Like Slackers [Laptop Mag via CrunchGear]
first? really ?
news from 2007 : In Japan Half The Top Selling Books Are Written On Mobile Phones.
I’d like to see some sauce on that, Anonymous.
As the GimpWii, I’ve gotten good at point-to-type predictive text. I know I could use an USB keyboard, but it’s inconvenient to switch devices, and I rarely write more than this anyway.
But 100,000 words? Gak!
@anonymous : http://tinyurl.com/c8hmcw
wow! the gadget is really cool. Imagine it can carry 100,000 words. How much does it cost? I’d like to acquire one for writing up my wedding favors articles. The gadget is so conveniently amazing. This is perfect for outgoing writers. I’ll remember the name iPAQ 6515.
@#1 and #4
You’re sort of correct,
“Half of Japan’s top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year”
but 5 fiction novels is hardly “Half The Top Selling Books”.