writing software
*giggles* I got my first mail at one of the email addresses I set up for the characters in my last story. Mandy has written back, and now I'm actually sitting here giggling. It's kind of scaring the cats, to be honest, but I'm so tickled I just can't help it.
I was sick yesterday, but I spent a lot of the day playing around with various writing tools - I didn't actually do any writing, but I sure do like playing with the shiny toys.
My number one favorite piece of software is Scrivener. This is writing software which gets out of the way and lets you write. After struggling and fighting with microsquish products for years and years, I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was when I first started using Scrivener. It's got a lot of features, but they're all centered around a specific concept: writers want to write. You can go full screen and avoid all the fanciness. You can tag things and see all the character sketches, or chapters set in a specific place. You can organize your writing however feels most natural, and switch between views. There are outlining tools and a corkboard thing that's just like playing with notecards and and and... but at the end of the day, it's just great for getting down words, keeping track of those words, and not bugging you overmuch. I love it.
I've recently acquired Aeon Timeline. This? Is seriously spiffy. I tend to make big, sprawling universes, and powerful timeline software is something I've been wanting for years. Aeon Timeline has almost every feature on my wishlist, and those that it doesn't have? They're planned for future releases. I actually used it when writing the Minion Missives, to figure out what time stamps to put on each letter. It worked like a charm. I am filled with enthusiasm for this software, basically.
The thing I played with the most yesterday is called The Brain. This was my big birthday present a few years ago, and it's pretty incredible. It's mind mapping software, with a whole lot of flexibility. You can make all kinds of different links between 'thoughts', create different thought types, label things, tag things, include files and notes and external links to web pages... it's kind of the holy grail of mind mapping software. If you want to try out something kind of similar, mind meister is a free online mind mapping service. I've used it to create some extensive family trees and do some free form plotting before. FreeMind is also pretty nifty.
Otherwise, I use evernote and dropbox to sync and share files, since I spend about equal amounts of time out and about on my laptop and on my desktop at home. Evernote is ok, but I'm mostly using it now for older projects that I'm working with other people on - the stuff is all there, and we've all got accounts, so meh we'll stick with it. Dropbox I find spiffier on the whole, and would probably use just that if it was only me.
Other stuff that's worth mentioning: Written? Kitten! and Write or Die are both great for breaking writer's block and just getting the words going. I am a huge fan of 750words, and have written at least 750 words a day there for 855 days in a row now. It's pretty great for forming good habits. Also, there's this thing called livejournal...
I was sick yesterday, but I spent a lot of the day playing around with various writing tools - I didn't actually do any writing, but I sure do like playing with the shiny toys.
My number one favorite piece of software is Scrivener. This is writing software which gets out of the way and lets you write. After struggling and fighting with microsquish products for years and years, I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was when I first started using Scrivener. It's got a lot of features, but they're all centered around a specific concept: writers want to write. You can go full screen and avoid all the fanciness. You can tag things and see all the character sketches, or chapters set in a specific place. You can organize your writing however feels most natural, and switch between views. There are outlining tools and a corkboard thing that's just like playing with notecards and and and... but at the end of the day, it's just great for getting down words, keeping track of those words, and not bugging you overmuch. I love it.
I've recently acquired Aeon Timeline. This? Is seriously spiffy. I tend to make big, sprawling universes, and powerful timeline software is something I've been wanting for years. Aeon Timeline has almost every feature on my wishlist, and those that it doesn't have? They're planned for future releases. I actually used it when writing the Minion Missives, to figure out what time stamps to put on each letter. It worked like a charm. I am filled with enthusiasm for this software, basically.
The thing I played with the most yesterday is called The Brain. This was my big birthday present a few years ago, and it's pretty incredible. It's mind mapping software, with a whole lot of flexibility. You can make all kinds of different links between 'thoughts', create different thought types, label things, tag things, include files and notes and external links to web pages... it's kind of the holy grail of mind mapping software. If you want to try out something kind of similar, mind meister is a free online mind mapping service. I've used it to create some extensive family trees and do some free form plotting before. FreeMind is also pretty nifty.
Otherwise, I use evernote and dropbox to sync and share files, since I spend about equal amounts of time out and about on my laptop and on my desktop at home. Evernote is ok, but I'm mostly using it now for older projects that I'm working with other people on - the stuff is all there, and we've all got accounts, so meh we'll stick with it. Dropbox I find spiffier on the whole, and would probably use just that if it was only me.
Other stuff that's worth mentioning: Written? Kitten! and Write or Die are both great for breaking writer's block and just getting the words going. I am a huge fan of 750words, and have written at least 750 words a day there for 855 days in a row now. It's pretty great for forming good habits. Also, there's this thing called livejournal...