Since the advent of the computer, people have used them to make their lives both easier and more complicated. All the programs we run can be rather useful, if we know how to use them efficiently. Otherwise it can become a mire of technical manuals, late-night phone calls to customer support and so many emotional highs and lows that it’s a wonder more computers aren’t seen sailing out of high-rise windows to come crashing down on the sidewalk.
This procession of technology has not passed by writers either. Here is a rundown of the tecchy bits I use in relation to my writing. I have a desktop computer (Dell) that is my workhorse for at-home stuff, blogging and my daily surfing. I also have a PDA (also Dell) with a mini keyboard that I take with me on trips, or if I want to get out of the apartment, to the nearest Barnes and Noble for a few hours of focused wordsmithing. To back up all of my documents, which I do at least weekly, I have a 6 gigabyte USB portable drive that I keep handy. I type in Microsoft Word, and I use Gmail quite a bit in emailing documents back and forth to myself, so I can access them from whatever computer I might have handy. That’s about it.
Now if you pick up a writing magazine these days, one of the things you see on a lot of the advertisement pages are sales pitches for writing software and tech toys. I’m looking at one right now, and here’s what I spot:
The Neo, basically a portable keyboard with a tiny screen. An online guide to the publishing industry. Players and publishers for audio books. A software program for screenplay writers. Novel-writing software, and more novel-writing software.
So with this glut of bits and bytes so ready to help us achieve our publishing dreams, is there any one program out there that actually is worth buying and using? I suppose it depends on how organized you like to be, or how dependent you want to be on your computer to help you draft out a story. One of the major players I have seen mentioned pretty often is this program:
It is used by none other than Holly Lisle, which made me at least want to look into it. I don’t think I’m going to shell out for it right yet, but its features are impressive.
It helps writers keep all their documents in an outline for the book they’re working on, has a system to keep track of character names and key terms, and even has a virtual corkboard where you can pin notes for yourself to read as you go through a draft. And when you are done using it, you can export the draft into any other word processing software that you want to work with. Overall it looks pretty solid. Has anyone used this before, or do you all have your own tech-tips and tricks that you’d like to share?
I see that smile.
Noticed it is for Macs..doesn’t work with plain old PCs.
True. I don’t know how many people out there use both. I didn’t touch a mac until I started working at the publishing company, but now I’m pretty proficient at both. I would even think to switch over to a macbook at some point, but only if they were able to catch up with the gaming trends. Right now it seems like macs are a year or two behind the curve on when programs are adapted and released. I know. Is that a shallow reason or what?
I think the screen-writing software may help (if you’re a screenwriter, natch), but for writing a book? What more can you need apart from Microsoft Word? Maybe these things are props when the ideas are getting a bit slow? A virtual cork-board? (I’ll admit to being a bit stuck in my current project, and when I read this post I thought “Oh cool! If I get some yummy software maybe that will give me some fresh(er) ideas???!!!” Till another voice in my head replied, “No it won’t you idiot – now concentrate!”)
🙂
It’s weird, isn’t it? Something as simple as a corkboard becomes the next biggest thing once it goes virtual. Maybe computers in themselves are just one huge network of distraction opportunities. We should spark a typewriter revolution and see how many writers we could get to fall back to low-tech drafting, and then see if productivity and word count goes up. Though I’d only go as far as typewriters. Can’t do notebooks or longhand, as I wouldn’t be able to read my own first draft.