I’m a lurker, I lurk people. I’ve probably lurked you. Sometimes during my lurk-capades I find a little nugget of wisdom that blows my world apart. It’s usually mentioned in some off-handed way that suggests it’s common knowledge. In which case, this post should embarrass me.
I’ve been using Microsoft Word for some 20-odd years. It’s my go-to word processing application for everything when writing. It’s handy word-count feature keeps me on track when submitting to journals and contests with submission rules. After 20 years you’d figure I’d know all its secrets. But no, this morning’s lurk informed me that my word processing application has been quietly lurking me. After all these years it’s been keeping track of every minute that it takes me to grind away at edits. Well played Microsoft, well-played.
If you already knew about this little-known feature, congratulations, and where have you been? Tweet this information out immediately! If not, check your documents in File/Properties/Statistics (for Word 2003 or earlier) and Office Button/Prepare/Properties/Document Properties/Advanced Properties/Statistics (for Word 2007 and later.) I promise that Word doesn’t judge. If it did, maybe I’d have known about it earlier. (hint hint @Microsoft, forget Clippy, where’s my AI? I’d like the voice of Spock please, or Gandalf, yes, definitely Gandalf.)
Word: “Um, excuse me Catherine?”
Me: <fingers recoil from keyboard> “Woah… WTF?”
Word: “Yeah, uh, it’s me Word. Can you pick up your pace a bit? You’re slacking this week.”
Me: “What do you mean slacking? These edits are tough.”
Word: “Yes, right, well, you’ve been editing chapter one for 6,586 minutes already and you need to push on if you’re ever going to get this novel done.”
Me: “And what would you know about how long it takes?”
Word: “Well, I don’t mean to brag, but I am a child of Microsoft, and we know everything. Shall I give you the estimates of author chapter revision times in North America?”
Me: <pushes mute button>
UberScribbler 