Caudex Digitalis

Previously: Travel Writing

The idea took shape one night. I was too lazy to sit in front of the laptop, to tap the keys, and write a blog much like I am penning right now.

Instead, there was a desire to craft a story while I laid flat on my stomach in bed. In this body posture, words seem to flow easier, and the mind is less cluttered when I am mere winks away from sleep.

The method would have been easier to accomplish with Samsung's Memo app. But with the replacement of the old phone with Xperia, I found Sony's Notes disappointing. Not only is there a limit to the number of characters you can write in a page, entire drafts disappear when one fails to save his work.

The app simply isn't created for writing journals much like this.

So off I checked Google Play for a fitting replacement. I tried a few apps, including Evernote and found them too difficult to use.

All that has changed when I chanced upon the Notebooks app. From that moment, after it was installed on Ndoto, half of the works I publish online found their drafts in this software's binary code.

Notebooks Pro

Simply put, the app lets wordsmiths like me create entire works using a single page. It means, there are no limits to words, sentences and paragraphs in a page, and image attachments are optional, if a writer plans to import the draft to another medium. One can also close the app, and even switch off the phone, and still find the draft saved to the most recent revision. I could just imagine a novel, written in parts before bedtime, using nothing but this application. Chapters upon chapters read aloud by the author and edited, before being converted to a .pdf file.

The basic app is free. But with advertisement comes the unnecessary distraction. Knowing I can write anywhere and anytime using Notebooks, the investment of 2 dollars in local currency for the full version has already paid dividends.

Drafts Page

Writing for me, in essence, remains a lifetime pursuit. A tireless discipline that goes on even in the absence of an audience.  And in a time when these writing practices experience a collective withering; when Blogging as an artform no longer find patrons among the pedestrians, this handy digital parchment, I could tap when creative muses yearn to craft - away from the laptop - spells the difference between the total and complete surrender of the journal,

And the continued embrace of the written word elevated in long form.