Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

I’m David Wake, an “eclectic” writer; which means a) I use semicolons outside of programming, b) I write in all sorts of genres (science fiction, fantasy, adventure, satire, comedy, cosy mystery, samurai Japan, and a novel about a pub crawl), and c) I’m difficult to market. With 14 novels and quite a few in the pipeline, it’s “What do you like to read, ’cos I’ve probably written something you’d like.”

I’m an indie author who co-runs a collective of indies, New Street Authors, here in the UK, and I’ve even co-written a nonfiction book on why and exactly how to self-publish, Punk Publishing.

Oh, and I invented the Drabble, which is a story of exactly 100 words, and I live in the UK within smelling distance of a chocolate factory.

As for outside of work, I like writing, so I do that. That’s not really sensible, I know.

What hardware do you use?

I don’t care.

Seriously, I know interviewees on this newsletter go on about their setups to Star Trek technobabble levels, but I genuinely don’t care. I could look it up, I suppose, but why? What does it matter? These days, it would be difficult to buy a PC that wasn’t up to the job of writing novels. Once it’s powerful enough to edit video, then I’m happy. (A definition of “happy” that includes swearing at the damned thing when it decides to save, taking forever, when I was in the zone!) So, my PC is old, ancient, and bloated with all sorts of things that have been installed over the years. I ought to upgrade, but every time I’ve done this, some useful pieces of software have stopped working.

For a man who has a software engineering science degree, used to work in computer science research (we were trying to invent the internet, but didn’t), has written four technological near-future SF novels and does so in a one-to-one scale starship, I am more of a Luddite than I ought to be.

I have a left-handed vertical mouse, an Aurtec. I spent a while finding one that fit my hand nicely. This one, which I just turned over to read the printing there and so dazzled myself with the laser, is the third I’ve had of these.

I’ve an ErgoDox EZ. I have to turn this one over every time Oryx asks me if it has a logo or not. It does.

I did make my own wooden tenting kit. When I bought the keyboard, I didn’t get any legs, so, after using paperbacks to find the right angle, I found two door knobs that gave just the right tilt for me. My kit has blobs of thermoplastic that I moulded—“Ow, ow!”—to my palms, so I know when I’m in the right place for typing. I do need to redo these, as they’ve slowly worn smooth and my hands have started sliding off.

And what software?

For writing, I use Word (with OpenOffice in the background for when Microsoft mess things up and stop me using what I’ve paid outright for). Other than that, it’s Excel (accounts, tracking progress), Lazarus (an open-source Delphi clone with Pascal as its backend), Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 (book covers, etc.) and Adobe Premiere Elements 10 (video editing, which I used to do and don’t want to give up).

And Mozilla Thunderbird for email and Mozilla Firefox for internet browsing.

And WordWeb, which is a marvellous thesaurus program I heartily recommend.

And AutoHotKey!

I’ve also written a couple of programs, like my Write Click, using Lazarus to help me organise myself and my writing, and to convert documents to the .epub ebook format.

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

I use a custom layout with custom keycaps (and I have loads of other keycaps in a chocolates tub).

As I use Word more than twice as much as Excel, Photoshop, Lazarus, Firefox, etc., put together, it made sense to prioritise that. So, if it’s slightly tricky to press, say, “=”, then so be it—I don’t use an equals sign in my fiction. This is, to my mind, the key (Editor: That’s a dreadful pun)(Copy edit query: Is this really you?) to customising your keyboard: fingers on the easy keys to reach for the common stuff and if I have to move my hands for those once-in-a-blue-moon symbols, then fine.

But it was hard to work out.

It’s like a Fifteen Puzzle game, shuffling the tiles around and getting nowhere as there isn’t enough space to sort things. In the end, I got myself a huge macropad and took everything off the ErgoDox. Then, when I needed something, I brought it back onto the ErgoDox. Starting a novel with “Once upon a time…” I realised I needed an “o”… and a Shift key, and an “n” and “c”, “e” and so on. That’s an exaggeration; I knew I needed the qwerty keys, of course, and the numbers, but with the others, it really was like that. Putting the Shift key under my thumb (aren’t thumb clusters great) freed two other keys, and moving Backslash meant I could get the cursor keys in the proper shape and so on and on. It’s always going to be a work in progress. For example, there’s a yellow key just here with an X on it that doesn’t do anything at all.

Before I bought an ErgoDox, I used a Logitech K350, which is slightly ergonomically curved—a great keyboard, I won’t hear anything said against it; I’ve written novels on it. Anyway, I’d been using all its function keys for shortcuts and I took this approach over to the ErgoDox. So I have dedicated keys for italics, copy, paste, WordWeb, and my own program.

I’m left-handed with the mouse, as I developed a strain injury in my right hand. This change altered the way my imagination worked, which was very odd, and I guess it sparked my interest in ergonomic keyboards. So, with the mouse, I highlight something and then I have individual keys on the right hand for copy, paste and delete.

I have a lot of function keys on my layout, and these are mapped by AutoHotKey to generate other keystrokes, mouse movements, and even whole phrases. For example, I created a menu button (red square), so Menu, then “d” gives me the date. I don’t think I’ve typed my email address in years: menu, “e”—done.

I also put the apostrophe under my right little finger as I use dialogue far more than a semicolon, and then I thought, a semicolon is really just a big comma, so Shift-Comma is a semicolon and Ctrl-Comma is a left angle bracket. I use an em-dash all the time, so I’ve a dedicated key for that. Or rather, Dash, Shift-Dash for em-dash and Ctrl-Dash for interrupted speech.

“Can you give me an example of interrupted speech, because–”

“There you go.”

“Thanks.”

It goes back to my playwriting days, when interrupted dialogue was my thing.

I think one key (Editor: That dreadful pun again)(Copy editor: Are we really going to let him put words in your mouth?)(Editor: They’re good words, so sure) to switch (Editor: Oh, honestly)(Copy editor: …?)(Editor: One more, and I’m cutting him off) things up is deciding at what level to customise. As I’ve said, I use em-dash a lot, so I’ve a dedicated key for it. One of my heroines is called Earnestine, so in Word “e#” is autoreplaced to “Earnestine.” However, my indie collective “New Street Authors” is something I write in emails as well, so that’s Menu, “n” via AutoHotKey.

It all gets very complicated to explain. I try, but people’s eyes glaze over.

A lot of this AutoHotKey business could be replaced by Oryx now that it has long macros, but it doesn’t do today’s date.

I only have two layers, one for writing and the other for a combination of web browsing on the left and Photoshop on the right. There’s also vague attempt at a numeric keypad. I’ve preferred to stack stuff on the main layer and use Shift and Control, rather than having other layers.

It’s all a rabbit hole, of course.

I really like having keys that tell me what the key is. The idea of blank keycaps seems strange to me, but then a chocolate box of keycaps probably seems strange to you. I recently had a problem of my little finger hitting Cursor Up instead of the apostrophe. When I had to Shift-Apostrophe for double-quotes and missed, I was suddenly at the top of the document, typing away in the wrong place. So, I got some Sugru and moulded a keycap with a wall that my finger would have to jump over to hit the wrong key. It looks ugly; I need to spray-paint it, but it works really well. (I wonder if I can use this idea to justify buying a 3D printer.)

What would be your dream setup?

The Dexterity App from my novel, I, Phone, is a system whereby you wave your hands in front of you and make complex finger positions and hand movements. No, no, wait, that was a comedy; and you’d have to memorise 1,024 positions, you’d get RSI and you’d tie your fingers in a knot.

The main issue I have is that I move from keyboard to mouse to keyboard and back again. So, I’d like a mouse built into the keyboard. There are some around—KeyMouse, for example—but that seems to have too many keys, looks heavy, and it’s expensive. I’d like something that uses the Microwriter/Cykey codes. They do appear difficult to learn, but it was easy, and my muscle memory is still there despite not using one for decades. The Microwriter was a six-key device invented by Cy Enfield on location when he was directing Michael Caine’s breakthrough film Zulu. Spock uses something with a similar keyboard layout in Star Trek: The Voyage Home.

A mouse, or rather two mice, with those keys built in, would be amazing.

I so want this that I’ve started building one. Unfortunately, hardware is not my forte. Why can’t ZSA make one? Come on, guys, I’ve got all the ideas and plans ready.

(Copy editor: That was fun!)(Editor: Yes, but make sure to strike all our chatter from the final.)