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Italian 'Writes' 384-Page Book With His Cell Phone

Science fiction author Roberto Bernocco wrote an entire novel in his downtime using only his Nokia 6630 cell phone. In case you're not familiar with that model, it does not have a QWERTY keyboard. He used T9 to write the entire thing, which took him 17 weeks. It was recently published.

Wow. I've written some seriously long e-mails with my cell phones over the last two years, but nothing even remotely close to 384 pages worth. According to Mobile Whack, Bernocco's book is the first ever to be published that was written on a cell phone.

He used time spent on trains commuting and other spare moments to write the novel one paragraph at a time. He saved each paragraph as it was written and then transferred it to his PC for editing and proofreading. All the original text, though, was composed on his phone. And he did not use T9 or other SMS/IM shorthand and abbreviations. He used full Italian words and grammar.

The book is called Compagni di Viaggo, which translates to Fellow Travelers in English. It was published on a Web site called Lulu.com, which is a place where anyone is welcome to publish their own books for print.

I've used nothing but QWERTY-equipped cell phones for the last two years. I am worthless with T9, which stands for Text on 9 keys, a predictive text technology for mobile phones. Even with QWERTY phones, though, I can't imagine writing so much. It just gets tedious after a while. That Bernocco was able to accomplish so much in just 4 months is a testament to his deft thumbs and passion for writing.

Well done, Roberto.

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