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Craig's Mac Story
The difficult second novel becomes a little less difficult
by Craig Alan Williamson, December 2007
Writing a novel gives a man plenty of time to bond with his computer. My Sony Vaio and I shared plenty of good times and bodily fluids during the creation of 'A Foreign Education', but our relationship was always destined to come to an end. As I type this on my shiny new Macbook Pro, my Vaio can only look on jealously from the corner at my slick operating system and impressively backlit keys. While he threatens to expose my sordid Internet history to the world, I simply retaliate with one word: 'eBay'.
And so with my first novel released, attention is turning to the follow-up. This has brought me to thinking about how different the writing experience will be on a Mac compared to a PC. More specifically, I am so impressed with the efficiency of every aspect of my Mac that I am wondering exactly how much time I can save by writing my next book on it rather than my old Vaio. Here are my top 5 potential time savers:
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5. Using Leopard's Spaces - With my word processor, dictionary, music player, web browser, e-mail, and fetish movies all open at the same time, things got pretty crowded on my Windows desktop. Maximising, minimising, resizing - they all take their toll on a writer's productivity. In Mac OS X Leopard I can use the Spaces feature, giving each of my separate activities their own personal desktop in which to rest easily without jostling for elbow-room. Over a 6 month book-writing period working 5 days a week these time savings would soon add up. Saving: 2 hours
4. Researching rude words - Well, not just rude words but all sorts of words that I am not quite sure how to spell. Also researching locations, events, and various depraved practices using Wikipedia or the wider Internet. While I could perform all of this background work on my PC, it just took forever to switch between windows and open up different electronic dictionaries. My Mac has a superbly integrated dictionary, thesaurus and Wikipedia search tool available at the touch of a hot-key, which is bound to save me a few minutes every day. Saving: 3 hours
3. Booting up and shutting down - In the time it took my Windows XP machine to start up I could have invaded a small country and installed a puppet government. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but it did take between 2 and 3 minutes to boot up, and still well over a minute if I was switching on from standby. My Mac boots up from cold in around 20 seconds or from sleep almost instantly. Shutting down is similarly swift on the Mac and painfully slow on the PC. Saving: 6 hours
2. Not having to try to attract women - In a fruitless attempt to appear attractive to women other than my wife, I used to waste my valuable time doing ridiculous things like showering and trimming my nasal hair. Having an Apple computer gives me instant coolness and admiration from all of the hottest women on the planet, thus removing the need for these pathetic activities. Saving: 50 hours
1. The wife effect - My wife has been so impressed with my Mac's usability that she has just bought her own Macbook. Since doing so she has spent far more time than usual browsing the Internet and sending e-mails, thus removing her argument trump card of 'you spend too much time on that computer'. As an added bonus she has now started editing videos in iMovie (previously my job) which will also save me countless hours after vacations and special occasions. Saving: A marriage and 100 hours
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So there you have it. The total time saved adds up to around 6 whole days, which leads to another problem - what to do with so much free time? I'm thinking of treating my Sony Vaio to a farewell holiday. I'll still have to sneak my Macbook Pro into my luggage without him knowing though - how else am I going to impress all the lovely ladies while we're on the beach?
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