Re-markable

Some Months — years? — ago our very own Amanda talked about the Remarkable tablet. I jonesed on it a little, but the handwriting to text didn’t seem all that, and well….

We were broke.

We’re not broke, but we’re being very careful till house sells. (Keep fingers crossed on that, btw.) Because if we have to do work on it, it’s going to take a lot of the overage from the gofundme.

On the other hand there was a category of funds we suddenly needed to spend.

Um…. So, it turns out that Another Rhodes was wildly successful. No, seriously. More than I realized, partly because I was distracted with moving and stuff.

Added to the comic income, it was…. a very good year. But we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off, so we didn’t realize it till the last week of the year, which occasioned a minor panic.

Look, with everything we spent on the house, and the move, we had been living very lean in the business sense, too. (We figured fit hit the shan we’d have to borrow from the business.)

But suddenly we had a surplus which was going to cost us in taxes, and well…. we were minus a lot of things.

I got — believe it or not — the first new-bought office chair in 20 years as a published author. Before all my office furniture has come from thrift shops or Dan’s office when they refurbished. Since the last chair was extensively baptized by Valeria-cat during my frequent absences, this was needed, and a relief. (You know the chair is clean, but you start imagining it’s damp, and….)

I also got a conversion/typesetting program. I’ll report on that later. And a couple of other relatively cheap things just for convenience sake’s.

But then I was poking around on the site of the Remarkable, and I told Dan “I don’t suppose…”

And he said “Buy, buy, buy.” Friends, he’s from an old Connecticut family. I didn’t know that word was part of his vocabulary.

So I bought it.

Among other things, they have improved the handwriting recognition, but even I was surprised at how much. You see, my handwriting started out 19th century Portuguese (I had an old first grade teacher,) and then it became modern Portuguese. Upon which was overlayed American. It’s a mess. Sometimes even I can’t read it.

But the remarkable does.

Sure there are minor glitches, like a document titled “Rest of the plot for Bowl of Red” translated as “Pest of the plot for Bowl of Red.” But all things considered…. (Also the plot IS a pest. This entire novel is a full-out run. Not what I’d planned.)

Anyway, this is useful since today was the first day since the new year that my mind sort of worked, but I still got tired way too easily. So a lot of time has been spent scribbling on the Remarkable, between naps.

I’m told this bug takes 2 weeks to get over, and my editor has said he’ll wait, and I guess it’s the best I can do. But sheeesh, I’m tired of being sick.

Anyway, at least I got a remarkable to scribble on. I didn’t get it for writing on, but for notes and research notes, and maybe plotting which I always do longhand.

I’ll let you know how it goes.