BYOK (Bring Your Own Keyboard), Part I

I recently posted that I had acquired a pomera for myself, which I hugely love. It’s slick, it’s sexy, and it’s fun. But there is another device that I’m hella looking forward to receiving, the BYOK. (Yes, it stands for Bring Your Own Keyboard.)

Note: image blatantly lifted from BYOK’s website.

I mean, look at this cute little thing. It fits in a pocket! I can literally just take this teeny tiny wretchedly adorable processor and shove it into my pocket while flinging a portable keyboard of my choosing into my purse. Or my pocket, if the keyboard is small enough. (Spoiler alert: I also bought a folding portable keyboard that can also go into my pocket.)

I am getting a white one AND a black one, and between these two devices and the pomera, nobody may ever hear from me ever again.

I will go into a bloody cafe with three different writing devices and turn myself into a princess of ponderings, writing on all three, quite possibly at the same time. One for notes. One for drafting. One for also drafting. OR WHATEVER I WANT.

I have zero chill when it comes to these little portable writing devices.

But the nicest thing about the BYOK, which has been a huge problem for me as a creator, is the keyboard. The pomera is the first portable device (outside of my laptop, which is not nearly as portable) that isn’t a NIGHTMARE for my hands because I require a super gentle keyboard with low travel.

Right now, I’m using the lofree lite, and both switch types offered meet my requirements. Which is a miracle. (I have three of them; one for travel, one for my mac, and one for my windows machine.)

So, while I am waiting (painfully) for the BYOKs to actually arrive, as they are currently in production, I have been taking a deep dive into BYOK’s creation app.

While you can do things, like write, right inside the app, I am using it to organize my thoughts, make note cards to reference for while I write, and otherwise use it as an excellent companion tool for working. As it’s cloud stored, I can access it on the road, which is a huge perk.

Fun fact: when I went to Canada, I literally forgot my note journal for the book I was working on. I had to use #FIX_MEEEEEE more than I care to think about because I didn’t have a digital version of my notes.

Oops.

BYOK’s app will solve that for me, especially on super complicated series, like Magic, Mayhem, and the Law in Precinct #153.

So, let me introduce to you… the BYOK app! Note: BYOK has given me a code for y’all to use if you like it and want to engage in shenanigans. It’s RJ40, and it’ll give you a 40% discount off the first year (annual membership) if you’d like to dive in after your free trial. (I believe the free trial starts automatically post sign up, but I honestly dove right on in and purchased the lifetime subscription right out of the gate.)

Yes, I like this idea that much, and fully have plans to make the BYOK (along with my pomera) critical parts of my creation process.

Right now, I’m planning on using the black one to help take notes for later importing into the BYOK app/into the cards for easy access, the white one for drafting a certain class of projects, and the pomera for drafting other classes of projects.

What? my brain doesn’t do things any one way. It likes variety, and it likes variety a lot.

(And yes, I will be doing a side by side of ALL my various writing devices, their pros, and their cons after I receive my BYOK. I will also be doing dedicated posts for each specific device. I need to get something to hold my cell phone so I can record while using the devices first, which is fine! I will be doing that after I move, which will be happening in a few weeks, yay!! MOVING.)

Anyway, more on the app. I’m going to start with the fledgling replotting work for the Requiem for the Rift King series. After much debating, I have decided that I’m going to just do a complete rewrite. I will salvage what I can from the original two books, but I’m going to take the like 80+ books worth of experience since working on the original one and just… try again.

I have hurt my own feelings making this decision.

So, as most of this stuff has already been exposed to the world in the original books, I’m going to use live examples of my brainstorming process. Please note that I am brainstorming, so this is very much designed to give me an idea of how things are starting. I will change all of this stuff, likely numerous times, to hammer out the introductions.

The items are vague, and I have many ways I could write this all out. Scene 1, for example, might actually be numerous scenes across several chapters, but it’s the “first chunk of arc” for that character, and will be completed before I dive into the next character’s “Scene”.

I will likely use four different POV characters for the entire series: Kalen, Breton, Maiten, and the High Priest that people met in the later section of Storm Without End. I might use one female character, who was introduced in one of the books, but I’m not sure. If I DO use her, I’m going to be hurting a great many feelings very on purpose, and I’m deciding if I really hate you all that much. (Spoiler alert: It depends on if I can realistically give the character sufficient content.)

I thought about using Tala as a lead character, but the reality is… everybody hates her pre-redemption arc, myself included.

I’ll be rewriting Tala to be more likable, but I don’t want her as a lead character for reasons better understood later and falls as spoiler territory.

I could just tell the story with Kalen and Breton, but I think Maiten and the High Priest will add excellent depth and give just a better view of the scale.

It is very unlikely that I will add additional POVs beyond these four, but anything can happen.

Spoiler alert: I will not be going to a POV just to murder that character off, however fun it could be just to give you all a continuous stream of character deaths in a lethal epic fantasy series.

I can hurt your feelings plenty with just four POVs.

(Yes, yes I will be hurting your feelings with this series. It’s dark epic fantasy, not a stroll through a meadow in the tail end of spring when all the flowers are blooming and the wolves are asleep.)

The developers have informed me that we will be getting the ability to make each card a unique color, but for now, all the cards are the same color. It should not at all surprise you that I selected this pink as my current card color choice.

Once we have colors for each card, I will be coloring each card based on the POV character so I can see what the “character vs scene” balance is. Kalen will have the highest number of scenes/cards because he is the main character of the series. Breton will have the second highest number of scenes/cards because he’s the primary secondary. The High Priest and Maiten will have the fewest, but their scenes will still be quite important.

When I’m telling a story like this, equality between character POVs isn’t a factor; I use the character POV required to tell the story in the most engaging fashion possible.

I am also using cards to set up notes for the kingdoms, which I’ll populate as I go.

As another sneak peek, here is the start of my character cards. As a character is introduced, they will get a card. If they don’t have a name, their scene appearance and role are listed instead.

As I work on the book, my BYOK records will become more expansive. And yes, doing it as you go during the creation process saves a great deal of trouble and aggravation later.

I am going to be hugely aggravated when I import all of my Vigilante Magical Librarians notes into this thing, especially as the plot becomes even more convoluted than it already is.

And yes, I will be coloring my red herring elements pink/red because I’m a dick.

But seriously, if you are in the market for a new tool, I really like the BYOK app, and I’m excited to see what the developers do with it as they move forward with app AND device.

So, in case you missed the link above, here it is again. RJ40 will get you 40% off the annual plan. It’s a brand new app, so there are some bugs. Shift-refresh (shift-R in most browsers) will often fix them I’ve found. If you can’t click the “+’ to open a new card or some such, basically turn it off and turn it back on again.

The development team is super responsive about bugs, and they’re already working on hunting down and eradicating them. (I am an adventurous adopter of technology in cases like this, and I’m willing to watch the app grow as I use it.)

But the app’s accessibility is king for me. My notes can go where I go, as long as I have an internet connection–and I I don’t anticipate having an internet connection, I will be loading screenshots of the cards/notes into my device for travel purposes… which is a hella lot easier than what I had been doing.

So, that’s today’s potentially over enthusiastic share of new writing toys on the horizon.

(My BYOK devices need to get here sooner because I want to PLAY with them and see how best to integrate them into my work life. I foresee installing some sort of holder on the dashboard of my truck to hold it while I work with my keyboard on my lap, and my spouse may truly end up defenestrating me from a moving vehicle as he’s forced to listen to the clicky-clacky of my mechanical keyboard for all eternity…)