Don't waste your commute: write a novel on your cellphone!

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 01 August 2007 15:12

Opinion and Analysis

That's exactly what one author has done: all 384 pages of it, on a Nokia 6630 using the standard non-qwerty keypad and with a little help from the T9 predictive text technology.

According to a press release: "Author, Robert Bernocco, has astounded the literary world by writing his first book on a mobile phone and publishing it on Lulu.com, the online marketplace for digital content. Mr Bernocco seized the opportunity to use his idle time whilst commuting to work and back by train, writing his 384 page sci-fi novel 'Fellow Travellers'...." Apparently it took him five months and he worked by writing in short paragraphs and then uploading them to his PC for edition.

You can buy the publication online  for $US17.38 and according to Lulu.com it has sold close to 20,000 copies. But before you rush off and get yours I should warn you that the press release was not quite accurate. The book is not called 'Fellow Travellers': it's called 'Compagni di viaggio' and it's in Italian. They never mentioned that in the press release. Perhaps they thought the illusion of English would give the announcement wider appeal.

Want to know more? Well I can't read Italian but this is what the description translates to using Altavista's Babelfish: "Adrenalin. Cold sweat. When the body produces them ignites the senses to the maximum power: it opens wide the eyes on every imperceptible shadow, stretches the orecchie to pick up the smallest noise. Ago because it is buio. Ago because you feel of the noises. Ago because you feel that you move, but do not know where you are going. Where they are carrying to you. Ago because it is the only thing that can make: to produce fear."

Just the sort of thing I would expect from predictive text!