N.A. Drescher

 Y e olde word processor of ancient lore. The venerable Word. The wily Docs. The inscrutable Pages. All these brave warriors of the written word now long vanquished by sleeker, smarter and better contenders. I, too, am guilty of forsaking my beloved Pages for the brute strength of Scrivener and the sleek curves of Ulysses and that slinky temptress known as iAWriter. But can you blame me? I am but a man who writes words. Simple words. And simple words need no margin settings or fancy title pages. There are no reasons for sharing my words with the clouds, as if a hundred other zealous writers will add their thoughts to my doc, live and in real time. My words need only a space to exist, and the occasional markdown so I need not lift my hands from the keyboard to navigate to a bulky options menu. Automatic saving and backup to iCloud is also helpful. Right now, I am obsessed with Ulysses. It has the markdown features I sought but could not find. When I need to italicize something, I need o

  “Enough!” I snapped and closed the lid of my MacBook with an aggressive slam. My kids stood staring at me, unsure of themselves or life or the universe at that moment. They had been monkeying around me, climbing on me and fighting with each other for the past twenty minutes. Usually this would be fine, but I was trying (and failing) to write a chapter of my current novel-in-progress. They were constantly breaking me out of that much-cherished writer’s trance, known among us writers as “the zone.” It’s tough being a parent and a writer and a journalist. Their mother works full-time on important contracts and her day is filled with Teams meetings, so it is generally left up to me to care for and entertain the kids. But I’ve got a job, as well. For starters, I’ve been offered a freelance contributor position with Android Police, for which I’m incredibly excited. I’ve also accepted a freelance contract to produce podcasts for an online learning company. I’ll be finding CPAs and lawyers a