My goal has always been to be a writer of fiction, but in the
pursuit of that target my life has taken many twists and turns. For
instance, in high school I got involved with journalism, and that led
to a career in graphic design (the field I'm in today).
I'd been saving my money for an IBM Selectric typewriter (they cost
about two grand back then), but then I saw my first personal computer
(an Osborne I) and knew my days of White Out and retyping were
over.
Once I'd bought a computer, I discovered BASIC programming, and that
distracted me for a while. I wrote little games and utilities, and I
dreamed of creating amazing things. Later, when I became a graphic
designer, I learned to use a Macintosh and knew my PC days were
over.
I'd used Borland's TURBO Pascal on the PC, so I bought the Mac
version. Unfortunately, writing Mac software was far more complicated
than I'd expected. I tried THINK Pascal, and eventually CodeWarrior. I
wrote a few half-finished utilities and games, but though I was
brimming with ideas, I was hampered by the difficulties. I spent
hundreds of dollars buying Apple's Inside Macintosh series but
couldn't fathom reading them. Besides, Apple changed everything every
few years, and not being a full-time programmer, I couldn't keep up
with the rapid API changes.
I tried HyperCard, and it was more my level, but it couldn't really
create standard Macintosh stand-alone applications. It was slow, didn't
work well with color, and didn't include many standard Mac user
interface elements.
Then I read about REALbasic in TidBITS. It
sounded exactly like what I was looking for. I downloaded a copy, and
in hours I had my own working "SimpleText" word processor. When I saw
how easy it was to add a feature like find and replace, I immediately
bought a REALbasic license.
Being a writer, word processors have always been a passion of mine.
I've gone through dozens over the past decade, but I've always found
them frustrating. I hate the behemoth Microsoft Word, and I
love the svelte WriteNow, but then the smaller program becomes limiting
when you're ready to format your work of art. I'd finally switched to
just writing everything in BBEdit, a text
editor, because plain text can be converted to any program easily.
The biggest difficulty of fiction writing was organizing my work.
For instance, for one of my novels I had collected over 30,000 words of
notes in four different word processing formats. I had outlines, ideas,
character biographies, scenes, revisions, and research material. And
that didn't include any of the actual novel! Trying to find anything -
when was Sarah born? - was an exercise in torment.
For years I'd dreamed of my own word processor, something that would
make the writing process easier. Then one day it hit me - if all those
disparate chapters and notes could be collected into a single file,
keeping my novel structured and organized would be much simpler. I
launched REALbasic and began to play.
The word processor that was born out of that was Z-Write, the
world's first "nonlinear" word processor. I call it nonlinear because
it allows you to organize your writing into sections of any length, in
any order you like (unlike a traditional word processor in which your
text is nothing more than a long, linear scroll). You can mix notes and
chapters, and just print one or the other. In a sense, each Z-Write
document becomes a miniature database of writing snippets for a large
project. At any time you can easily export selected sections into RTF,
plain text, or copy them to the clipboard to take to a full-featured
word processor.
The idea is simple and easy to use, but revolutionary in its
effectiveness. I wrote it for myself, but Z-Write was so cool that I
decided to release it as shareware. The results blew my mind.
Not only have tens of thousands of people downloaded the software,
but many have purchased it. Positive reviews appeared in various
webzines and print
publications -
MacHome rated Z-Write higher than Microsoft Word!
Even better, from an inspiration standpoint, I've received hundreds
of wonderful emails from writers
worldwide thanking me for a remarkable achievement. Z-Write is not
perfect, and I have many improvements in store, but it's an incredible
start.
The key for me is that a program like Z-Write would never have been
written by a programmer: it required a writer to see what was needed. I
think that's true for most revolutionary ideas.
A programmer thinks about programming. A musician knows music; an
architect, architecture; a dancer understands dance. But unless they
know how to program, they cannot invent the software needed to assist
them in their challenges. If you look into it, all innovative software
- the first spreadsheet, the first desktop publishing package - was
initially created by nonprogrammers or programmers who had a keen
interest in another field. It only makes sense: How can a non-musician
understand what a musician needs?
REALbasic gives real programming power to the nonprogrammer. If you
can handle a scripting language like HyperCard, you can handle
REALbasic. I'm so convinced of the power of REALbasic that I'm starting
a magazine and writing a
weekly tutorial column for
Applelinks.
No matter happens in the future, Z-Write's success has changed my
life forever. I had a little idea, threw it out there, and people
responded. That's given me incredible confidence in all aspects of my
life.
So take a risk! Learn something new! You never know what unexpected
good will come out of it.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
