More Tools for Writers

Gmail from Google offers a free web email service that is secure and massive.

It's large enough you need never delete any old messages (unless they have truly huge files attached)

and there is an associated Google Drive that offers storage that works a lot like Dropbox.

They have a new service called Google Keep which is a note taking service (but currently only for android phones or web access).

Microsoft also offer free storage from their Skydrive, and similarly massive email space at outlook.com (formerly hotmail.com)

They also have an note save and search application, called OneNote.

iDrive - free online backup upto 5GB  http://www.idrive.com/?uid=F3C2W4G1U2

     IDrive is more of a traditional copy backup to the internet - so it's a bit more complex to use - but if you delete a file and then notice later there will still be a copy

     it also encrypts your files to keep them even more secure (so you create two passwords, one for login and one key for encryption/decryption.)

If you run out of free space or want more features then two other services broadly similar to Dropbox are:

SugarSync -  http://tinyurl.com/c25z639

IdriveSync - (Same company but a different servce to iDrive, this is synchronized storage rather than a backup) http://bit.ly/1692e21

Useful Tools for Writers

These services are all free to sign up for and use, but offer more storage or facilities if you want to pay for them (but you don't need to!)

Dropbox offers free bonus space (up to 16GB) if you perform some tasks to encourage your use, or refer friends to use the service as well

 (which is why there are fancy links here to get me a bonus if you sign up :-) ).

Dropbox - free online storage via a special folder for sharing files between your computers  

http://db.tt/7ZOHzvjX

Dropbox is widely used and simple to setup - put any writing files or ideas in your Dropbox folder and a copy will be stored on the internet.

You can install Dropbox on more than one PC and the files will be synchronised up and down between them.

Dropbox will still have a copy of your file (which you can download via the web) even if your PC breaks or is stolen!

It's rather like using a USB drive but you always have it and files are synchrovnised automatically 

(so huge files or numbers may take some time to synchronise depending on the speed of your internet link)

Evernote is similar in someways, but rather than being a general file backup and synchronise it is focused on saving notes.

It works well on smartphones and saves not only text but also photos and sound recordings.

It has features for tagging and searching your notes - for example for that story idea you had last week, or just a shopping list ...

https://evernote.com/

Dialogue - The Bermuda Triangle

Fiona took a deep breath and steeled herself for the trial to come.

She moved from the sofa to the armchair facing it, and then called out to her husband who she had heard putting his coat away in the hall cupboard.

”Hello George. I’m in the living room.”

“Hello dear. Have you had a good day”

“Oh, you know… how about you?”

“Oh, nothing special… The usual. Bloody train was late again this morning. Eleven minutes late – signal failure at Clapham Junction.”

“I need to talk, George.” she said pointing at the couch. “You’d better sit down.  Ahh - Do you want to get a drink first? It’s… it’s not good news.”

George sat down looking worriedly at his wife and trying to guess what this was about.

“I Know George.”

He looked blankly back at her.

“I Know. … I know about Susannah, and I can’t keep quiet about it any more.”

His face crumpled.

“How long have you known?”

“A few months. I found the ticket stubs for the Bermuda. Mr George Jenkins, Ms Susannah Ayres. After that I started to look and listen more carefully. The credit cards, your excuses when you were late.”

“I ought to explain..” he started but she cut him off,

“George, it’s too late for explanations. I don’t care and I don’t want to hear them. You You You’ve been hiding this from me, lying to me, and living this secret life for God knows how long… ”

“Three years” he said

“WHAT!, THREE FUCKING YEARS”, Christ George I can’t BELIEVE you’d do that to me. And with Susannah Ayres for God’s sake. I can understand that little whore milking you for whatever she could get, but didn’t you have the sense to see she was just after your wallet? ”

“I’m sorry…”

“YOU’RE sorry! Hah – I’M SORRY – I’M BLOODY SORRY. I’m disgusted, revolted, betrayed; I’m so angry it hurts. It HURTS George, it hurts me so much, it’s physical, it’s eating me up from inside…. DON’T TRY AND TOUCH ME!”

George lowered his arms and sat back on the sofa again. Unable to do anything else he tried to look Fiona in the eyes again, and blinked as the intensity of her anger dazzled him. He took a breath and waited for the moment to speak again.

“I am sorry Fiona. I didn’t mean it to happen. But working together we just found a friendship, more than that, an empathy, it was all innocent at first. She’s too young for ”

“You got that right you fool.”

“And I enjoyed working alongside her. It was, it was … it was like the daughter we never had.”

Fiona let out a subdued whine that escaped in spite of her efforts to keep it confined. The guttural low notes growled slowly and were then capped by a short high pitched “eak” as she choked it off.

“You can’t blame me for that”

“Fiona I don’t blame you at all. It was just that, just that she seemed so full of life. I took pleasure in her company. Nothing more… nothing inappropriate … then.”

“But you didn’t stop there, did you? What was it? The blonde hair or long legs?  You couldn’t keep your hands off could you!”

“I, I, eyes. I just noticed her eyes. They sparkled – just with joy, at doing a good job”

“Hah! I don’t want to know… She fluttered her eyelashes at you I bet. Did she gaze longingly at you is that it? Tell you how much she was in awe of you as her manager?”

“I, I, I just liked being with her. It was like being able to look at the world afresh. She had energy, vivacity and a lovely smile whi…”

“Oh I bet she smiled you stupid bastard. She must have smiled when she saw you coming. Oh look George is going soppy over me, I wonder what I can get out of this. Better flash some cleavage and show a little leg and see if I can get me a sugar daddy and promotion.”

“It wasn’t like that, Fiona”

“Well tell me how it was George? How did this fatherly platonic admiration end up with you in bed? I assume you have been screwing her? Or has the little tramp kept you on a string of promises without putting out?”

 “She, she was ill Fi. Very ill. Bone cancer. I found her in tears in the stock room and it all came out. I only put my arms around her to comfort her.”

“And then you ended up kissing her I suppose.”

“No, we never kissed well not on the lips. You don’t understand…”

Third Person Exercise - Soldiers

The soldiers moved cautiously along the hedgerows as they emerged from the woodland.  The platoon comprised nine men, each dressed alike in camouflage clothing. One carried a sub-machine gun (perhaps an officer?) , the others all had rifles.

Their field craft was sloppy. They moved separately, but clumped too closely together with one moving up to where another took temporary cover behind a bush or in ditch.

Although they kept to the edge of the fields to avoid being silhouetted by the skyline they made progress steadily, and predictably. Walking fully upright, rather than crouching or crawling, their heads and backpacks bobbed along like balloons, occasionally outlined against the grassland as the hedge dipped.

When they came to the track that slashed nakedly across the scrubland one man called the others towards him and they huddled together below a small tree. Two or three faced outwards looking for discontinuities

The leader pointed up towards the rocky outcrop, and indicated the route they would take.

The group began to disperse with a pairs of men slipping one along each side of the track. The leader and the man without a rifle stayed back by the tree, observing the troops they had sent up the slope.

The leader was turning to the other when he suddenly jerked and backwards as if kicked by a horse, clumsily clutching at the man net to him.

As the corporal instinctively grabbed at the officer  the sound of the shot reached them, but before it echoed he was already pulling the captain into what little cover the tree provided. He heard another bullet strike the ground behind them, and then a second later the sharp crack of the shot that had sent it on its way.

He shouted urgent orders to the men spread out in the undergrowth around the track, who lay as low as possible in whatever cover they could find while staring up at the hillside searching for any sign of the sniper.

Present Past and Future (version 2)

Elaine Strowger hefted the bucket of pig nuts onto her hip as she stepped up over the stile in the yard wall. The eight hungry weaners clamoured around the trough as she tipped the food in.

Sascha the breeding sow looked on anxiously from the segment behind the fence, waiting for her share. Elaine had kept the small holding for 15 years now, the last 5 working alone. Her mother had been with her at the start, but gradually her health prevented her doing any but the lightest work and she had had to move to a nursing home three years back when Elaine could no longer cope with caring for her and the animals. She visited twice weekly, weather permitting, but still felt the pain and the shame of abandoning her mother’s care to others in a home that she felt barely provided a decent quality of life and certainly not up to her own standards.

She felt worse about letting her mum go to “Rosy Banks” care home than she had when her dad has died in ’83. That had been sudden, and she’d been powerless to help, and although as a teenager she’d felt less responsibility she had been able to let out more grief. They’d all been so happy on the farm; her earliest memories were of the cows being driven into the yard towards the milking parlour. Susie, her younger sister, and she had made a pact to keep the family farming. They’d been tenants on the Castleford estate and the tenancy had passed on in the family. But the bloodline, tears and sweat had not been enough even before Susie had left home to marry John.

Elaine had persevered on the land although their dairy income had struggled once the milk marketing board was abolished. So she eventually moved with mum to the small holding, keeping goats not cows now, but selling a little milk, as well as a small pig unit around the acre of root vegetables grown in the soft fen soil. Somehow she kept the mixed enterprise running, scratching a living from the land like one of the half dozen free range hens she kept for her own eggs (and for barter to anyone willing to overlook the lack of mandatory salmonella testing).

She sighed as she tipped the last of the pignuts into Sascha’s trough. They’d been one of the lines of feed cereals John had been selling for the agricultural wholesalers when he first met her and Susie. He’d been a handsome young salesman who had flattered both the sisters before sweeping Susie off into matrimony.  

Elaine had had her romances too, most notably with David another member of the local young farmers. They’d been engaged for years, and she could have been a farmer’s wife with all she’d wanted … but she’d broken off the relationship months before the wedding.

She still felt bad for David – “It’s not you it’s me” had been about all the explanation she could give him – but it wasn’t enough to satisfy either of them. She’d never been able to tell anyone the real reason … that watching her sister’s marriage to John she’d become infatuated with him … loved him still, and could never show it, or admit it even to herself.

Pulling her mind away from the everyday issues of pignuts and the memories they had awoken Elaine turned and took the empty bucket back towards the house.

Chores were done, for an hour or two anyway, and mid-afternoon she took a short break and watched a little TV. She switched on the set and browsed the channels while the kettle boiled.

Come Dine With Me was on, and she watched the set of four people prepare their meals and and host their dinner parties. One of the contestants (quite a handsome man) hosted a fancy dress party, and she mused on what she would wear… She’d always longed to be dressed as Cleopatra, like Liz Taylor in the film. But with hardly a pause in her train of thought she decided she was more Margaret Rutherford than Elizabeth Taylor.  

Maybe a Marie Antoinette dress, or Regency – was that contemporary with the French Revolution? Frocks with lace and frills and some pizazz.

But who would she invite to a dinner party? She’d never feel comfortable on any TV programme – never mind one with all the sarcastic comments from the narrator.

What was that dinner party game? Your ideal guests from history, present or even fiction.

She’d have Liz Taylor for sure … there were so few real stars these days. Tom Cruise maybe. Also her parents of course, Susie and John … and … Neil Sedaka, he writes such lovely songs. It would be nice to have someone handsome and attractive like the TV man … someone like John, but unattached. Someone who might get attached to her. They didn’t need to be a farmer, or even a dog lover, as long as they had some compassion for animals. Maybe somewhere there was a man who’d put up with her irritability, someone she could get close to. Someone like John …

David at the Picnic (Version 1)

David was attending the annual picnic held by the Adel Society of Friends.

He was not a believer or an active member of the society, but his wife had returned to the Quaker Meetings for her spiritual needs in her later years. David had attended some of the social events, and one or two funeral services and his own personal beliefs found the culture very open and accepting, and even the Meeting for Worship was pleasingly personal and dogma free.

But today was only an informal social gathering, not even at the meeting house but a picnic at the nearby Golden Acres park (British weather permitting). He walked with his wife, towards the assembling group at the end of the car park, moving with the steady care of an old man troubled by arthritis and aging bones. But on most fine days he still walked a mile or two as exercise, a habit he had maintained since having had a heart bypass some 20 years before. The regular stroll complemented a weekly heart patient keep fit class run by the local hospital and his health was pretty fair for an octogenarian.

Pleasantries were exchanged with those already waiting, and watches were checked as people discussed who else was and was not expected, and who that was currently parking. David’s voice still bore subtle but distinct traces of his Cornish origins, some 60 years after he had left the county, but his accent had little Yorkshire in it, even 30 years after moving on from London. Being a little hard of hearing he tended to speak quite loudly, but in fact his wife was the one who was profoundly deaf.

The group decided its complement was complete enough to proceed, and moved gently down the nearby path, carrying a variety of hampers and cool bags. Settling themselves around the picnic tables at the beauty spot the food and drink began to emerge.  David took out the roast beef sandwiches, home made from the remains of the weekend’s joint, and inspected the two rounds of crusty bloomer, passing the one without horseradish to his wife.

David had thought of bringing traditional Cornish pasties in place of the sandwiches, but diced steak not mince, with potato, swede and onion, but never any carrot, but had decided instead to bring a sharing dish from his county of origin.

Unpacking strawberry jam and scones he placed them on the table setting a large pot of clotted cream next to them. Several people enjoyed the cool cream and jam mixture on the halves of scones, but David insisted that the jam be placed first on the bread-cake, Cornish style. As he said, “They put the cream underneath in Devon, because they’re ashamed of it”.