Russell Smith deconstructs the idea of the app behind the book. He’s talking about an app called Prolifiko that Wyl Menmuir used to write his book, something we mentioned in our Link Wanderlust series here. The app is a productivity tracker, so it measures how productive you are though it can not keep track of where your ideas come from. Such an app is good, argues Smith, if you have the time. But if you don’t….
Smith doesn’t get the writing everyday magic formula. He thinks what’s more important is the outline. If you know what will happen in the story, you are more likely to finish it. Smith has a different take on much of the advice that is doled out to writers. Read his essay here.
Another essay I discovered was about speed reading apps in the market.
Fun Fact:
The idea of speed reading was invented by an American schoolteacher named Evelyn Wood, whose search for a way to improve the lives of troubled teenagers in Salt Lake County, Utah, by teaching them to read effortlessly, led her to the belief that she herself could read at the rate of 2,700 words a minute, 10 times faster than the average educated reader. And further, that the techniques that allowed her to do so could be taught and sold.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/08/speed-reading-apps-can-you-really-read-novel-in-your-lunch-hour?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Speed reading is a fad that has institutes dedicated to the cause. There are techniques that help you speed read like running your finger down in the middle of the page and looking at print as blocks, rather than words and sentences. Check out Spreeder and Accelread …
Read the essay here.