In today’s Journal
* A New Story
* WPS Office Set Aside
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A New Story
Yesterday a new story went out via my substack. If you aren’t subscribed and would like to read it, click “Layers”. Afterward if you want to subscribe, click the button at the end of the post.
I noticed one kind of strange thing, and I hadn’t noticed it before. The POV character of the story is a guy named Thomas Pilsen. A character by the same name stars in one or two other stories and/or novellas as well, in different genres.
Kind’a cool if you think about it. My subconscious must like that name.
WPS Office Set Aside
As I mentioned at the beginning of this test, my current subscription to Microsoft Office 365 is good until sometime in June 2024.
Therefore, I’ve decided the few glitches I found in WPS Office are enough to warrant setting it aside for now. I look forward to testing both it and LibreOffice again several months from now.
I do very much like that all of the applications in WPS Office open in one window but in different tabs. That is ridiculously convenient. I kind of wish Microsoft Office and LibreOffice would do the same thing.
I also noticed WPS Office does have a “continue where you left off” feature, very similar to that in Office 365.
Oh, you can also install the paid version of WPS Office on as many as nine devices, though only three laptops or desktop computers. (You can install one subscription of Office 365 on up to five computers.)
Before I begin with the Cons, WPS Office is also free. If you want extended functionality, it costs about $40 per year, still a substantial drop from the cost of Office 365. (That functionality does not address any of the issues I mention below.)
If you’re only writing fiction, you probably don’t need the extended stuff. You can see a feature comparison at https://www.wps.com/pricing/. From what I could see, none of the extra functionality has anything to do with word processing.
Here are the reasons I’m not going to switch to it right now:
Word count—When I opened the same document in all three programs, somehow it had 72 fewer words in WPS Office than in Office 365 or LibreOffice. I thought that was very odd.
Selecting Text—The program seems determined to select a line of text at a time. You can select only a word or even a few letters, but you have to be very careful or it will select a whole line.
Highlighting—Sometimes I find it useful to highlight a few lines of text. WPS Office offers several highlighting tools in its menu and in the Quick Access Toolbar. However, none of them actually highlight the text. When I select text and then click a color in the tool, the text remains the same.
No Shortcut Keys—Like LibreOffice, WPS Office also does not offer shortcut keys to insert symbols. BUT…
Options—Unlike LibreOffice, WPS Office has an Options section. Click the Menu tab in the upper left corner of WPS Office, scroll to the very bottom and click Options. Then click Edit and “Replace text as you type.” Now you can cause the program to replace — (or whatever) with an em dash. So it’s a little clunky, but that helps.
Options 2—There are not nearly as many options in WPS Office as are available in Office 365, but from what I saw there are enough to suit my purposes.
Options 3—Some of the features in Options seem to reset themselves if you close the program. For example, yesterday I unchecked “Check spelling as you type” and clicked Save. But today when I opened the program again, it was checking spelling as I typed and underlining the words in red. Annoying.
What I might call “cursor management” is a little choppy or clunky and awkward too. Say I’ve inadvertently selected a line of text. If I release the mouse, then attempt to place the cursor elsewhere, it takes a moment for the program to “release” the selected text. Very odd.
Maybe the program runs on something other than electrons. Shrug. I dunno.
Anyway, I’ll see whether there are any improvements in both programs before I renew my subscription to Office 365 next June. But don’t worry. I probably won’t report on those tests in the Journal unless the programs have made significant advances.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Booksellers Want Justice Department to Investigate Amazon” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/booksellers-want-justice-department-to-investigate-amazon/. Yawn. Again? See PG’s take.
See “Trademark Silliness” at https://deanwesleysmith.com/trademark-silliness/.
See “The Classics” at https://killzoneblog.com/2023/08/the-classics.html. Fun to think about.
See “New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI…” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/new-york-times-considers-legal-action-against-openai-as-copyright-tensions-swirl/. See PG’s take.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 790
Writing of Blackwell Ops 9: Cameron Stance
Brought forward………………………… 4087
Day 1…… 1595 words. To date…… 5682
Day 2…… 2101 words. To date…… 7783
Day 3…… 2573 words. To date…… 10356
Day 4…… 1588 words. To date…… 11944
Day 5…… 2135 words. To date…… 14079
Day 6…… 2019 words. To date…… 16098
Fiction for August……………………… 22614
Fiction for 2023………………………… 137161
Fiction since August 1………………… 22614
Nonfiction for August…………………… 16370
Nonfiction for the year……………… 166270
Annual consumable words………… 303431
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 2
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 73
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)… 221
Short story collections…………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.