Whereas A New Year Has Dawned

2014: a critical election year. The year epublishing begins to surpass traditional publishing. The year of the independent writer, of the gatekeeper, of the talented blogger demonstrating how to leverage an audience into a career. These are the things that will be happening, and we should all be ready for it. Start with the tools.

Hardware. Some people need pens and paper, others have to haul out a Selectric (yes, even in this day and age). Me, I need flexibility, but I also need to be able to get ideas down fast; I think faster than I can speak or type. So my main tools are my lovely powerful desktop computer, my beloved iPad (I shall give it a Viking funeral on the day it finally passes), my Kindle, and my iPhone. I also carry around pen and paper no matter where I go, just in case I forget to charge everything, or we’re traveling and I suddenly get an irresistible idea. And I use every single one.

But typing is not enough for me. Sometimes I’m struck by an idea while folding laundry or driving. Dragon Naturally Speaking and a really good headset are also helpful, though I have not utilized them enough. Resolution: that this year I will finally train my Dragon to understand the words that soak, molasses-like, through my thick accent. (Hah!)

You, dear writer, should find the physical tools you love, the ones that feel heavy and powerful under your fingers, and have something with you at all times that can take note of sudden brainstorms. If that tool is pen and paper, it will do; if it is the mainframe computer down at your office, well, that might be hard to keep in your pocket, but whatever floats you. The important thing is that your tools be transparent to your creativity, conduits that your stories can range down with no friction to slow them. Later you can worry about typing and formatting.

Software. Great hardware is nothing without something inside it, just as a good but uneducated and uninformed mind makes a very poor writer. We writers have an embarrassment of software riches today. This post is being composed on my iPad in the WordPress iOS app. I could just as easily email it to my WordPress account for publication, or compose it in Word and upload it directly. But that’s just for blog posting.

When you create stories, the most important thing about your software is that it be easy for YOU to use. It’s entirely possible that you will compose best on a bare-bones word processor like Textpad (though if you’re composing anything lengthy, I strongly suggest Wordpad instead to handle the larger files.) Others do better on a traditional word processor like Word, where they can create what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) files that look just like a printed page. If you’re like me, though, you need a little extra help controlling an overly-verdant imagination and pruning unruly plots.

So I use three essential tools when I’m writing anything of length: Scrivener or yWriter (they do approximately the same thing) and DocuWiki. Scrivener ($40) and yWriter (free) are essentially word processors built on a frame that enables writers to easily organize and re-organize writing, create templates for books or character outlining, and basically function as a second creative brain. Both allow you to create synopses and shuffle scenes around easily, note which sections of your book have been written and/or revised, and track all the other little bookkeeping chores you’ll find necessary when writing a long work. I prefer Scrivener, but it costs money and has a high learning curve. yWriter, though, is perfectly adequate to do everything most writers need, only a little bit clumsier.

DocuWiki is completely different. It’s a standalone wiki that you can use for organizing files. It will not open document files natively (darn it) but you can use it to track all your research, develop story bibles, build your plots and characters on the fly, and ultimately use as a robust story reference. Its limitations are prescribed only by you. A modified version, DocuWiki-on-a-Stick, can be installed to an SD card or a flash drive and moved from computer to computer if you write on multiple devices.

About those multiple devices: you will also need something that keeps notes and files accessible if you’re often on the go. This requires a different set of programs entirely. I get lots – and I mean LOTS – of ideas at odd times. To address this, I have Microsoft OneNote installed on every device that can handle it. This nifty little program lets me write bare-bones notes to myself, then file and organize them, and drag and drop in links or images from the Internet or other external resources. One of the niftiest things about it is the native OCR; if you drag and drop an image with text in it, like a scan, you can tell it to convert that image into editable text, and it does a surprisingly clean job.

More importantly, though, you can set OneNote to function in the Cloud with very little trouble. That means all your devices keyed to your OneNote account can instantly see changes you’ve made on another device, keeping your OneNote files completely up to date all the time across platforms. I use it frequently to write short stories in; that way, I can keep my creativity flowing no matter what I’m doing or where I am.

You can likewise back up documents into the Cloud. I generally back up to hard drives or flash drives, but many services, like DropBox or Google Docs, offer you free space for backing up files. You can use Google Docs natively as a word processor, or you can keep your different devices synced to your Cloud-based files so you always have access to the most recent files.

And now, if you’re not a technophile like me, your head is spinning. So, in a nutshell: choose your favorite writing medium, whether it’s electronic or paper; choose your favorite word processor or writing program; back up your files somehow; and go to town. The other stuff is advanced, things that make a writer’s life easier but are not required in order for you to craft a good story. That part of the writing process resides between your ears and depends on how long you apply the seat of your pants to your chair.