Zondaro.net / Thoughts and Photos

After 20 years of dithering I finally sat down and wrote a novel ( The Heart of Lightspeed ). The path I took involved some unusual technology decisions, which some people might find interesting so I put together this little blog post to talk about them. First, I used an iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard Case . Not quite the traditional laptop computer experience, but it has come a long way since Steve Jobs revealed the first iPad. There’s a proper Files app now! You can drag and drop! Multi-app window support exists! (Although it was a pain to use until the recent operating system update.)  Press Photo As keyboards go the Magic Keyboard is pretty darn good. It has backlighting. The keys have a nice click to them. The trackpad is a good size for what Apple has to design around. Getting used to Control / Option / CMD keys coming from the Windows PC world took some time, but it felt second nature quickly enough. I wrote my novel using an app named Ulysses . Its a subscription fee vs a flat ...

Today my first novel, The Heart of Lightspeed , goes up for sale on Amazon . Thus marking the end of a 20 year journey from an idea sketched up in a college dorm room to a physical book you can hold in your hands. It has been a long time coming and as I sit here with the first copy of the book there are a lot of things going through my head... The first is that I could not have written this book when I was in my 20s. Don’t get me wrong, I could have written something similar, but a book about nearly-immortal humans written by someone in their 20s would be lacking. It takes hands on experience with being a human being for a few decades to appreciate the real challenges that would come with living for hundreds of years. I’m also glad I didn’t write this book before I was introduced to modern feminist writings by my friend Denise. The book is far better thanks to having the inclusion of characters who are trans, homosexual and bodily challenged. A younger version of me would not have thou...