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Hey writers ... What do you use?

I'm a freelance editor and writer. I began as an amateur music journalist and then gradually found myself doing more editing than writing, and at a professional level.

I currently use a MacBook with external keyboard and mouse plus external 23-inch Hanns-G monitor. I tend to do most of my editing on the MacBook's built-in screen and most of the proofing of PDFs on the external monitor. It seems to work for me.

Most of the magazine's contributors use Windows machines so my own work process involves receiving these files and transferring the text across to Pages, which I much prefer to work in. If I may use a gardening analogy, it feels a little like working with a simple wooden-handled gardening tool (Pages), lighter and altogether more satisfying as a user experience, rather than a heavier, metal-handled implement (Word for Mac).

I eventually pour the fully edited and formatted text back into Word files, tweak a little, and forward to our designer.

Some years ago I used to work in Quark but it didn't seem to enhance the production flow at all so I was happy to evolve a new system in partnership with our designer. Word as part of that system seemed like the lesser of the 'evil' options. I really did not want to work solely in Word. ClarisWorks was replaced by AppleWorks, which then became iWork (featuring Pages).

I have a dedicated office space (I work from home) and I 'clock in' daily. I do write reviews and the occasional article though I prefer the editing these days.
 
Hi Wordsworth,

Interesting. What would you use if you worked out of home and only had an hour lunch break at work to write in? Say writing was on the sidelines of your life, and you were just moving into it. A little before work, and a little at lunch. Those plot ideas you just HAVE to get down, and quickly. What hardware would you use for portability? An iPad? Macbook Retina? Air?

Also, any ideas on a 'database' or wiki? Have you ever tried to write fictional worlds and manage reams of data and back-story, kind of like the Appendix to Lord of the Rings? Is there any software you know of that can help manage all that better, with an easy drop and drag interface that lets you click on the 'Rivendell' or 'Aragorn' wiki, and then you decide to change one of these major names and it just goes through the entire encyclopaedia and changes it all for you?
 
These days I'd probably buy an Air for portability if I were more mobile (rather than office-based) and grabbing some writing time on the hoof.

Can't help you with your other queries, I'm afraid.
 
Eclipse, I like writing on iPad but it does have limitations, I'm getting a 13 inch Air as a halfway tool between total mobility ( iPad) and desk (iMac and large screen for Air).

A lot of posters here love Scrivener ... Not for iPad yet but from what I've seen in their online tutorials, might answer some of your needs.
 
nightlong said:
The big attraction to the Air is portability, at home mostly, not being so desk-bound, but a screen with sharp text is a big priority too. how do other Air users who write all day get along with its dreary TN screen?
Click to expand...

I run a website using my 13 inch Air & I don't find the screen to be dreary at all.
 
Hi eclipse,

I use a 13" Air for a lot of my writing, and I think it's great - the screen (compared to the 11") really makes a difference for me, but it's still very portable. However, my iPad is my main portable device which I always carry with me, with an external keyboard when needed. I find it superior to my Air in certain settings/ for certain tasks due to the combination of long battery life, stylus input and 3G access.

I don't know of any apps that meet your specific requirements re wiki etc. I use Scrivener for my main writing (on my Air and windows desktop at work), which syncs with Elements on my iPad (as others have said, they're working on an iPad version). Scrivener is great for managing larger writing projects, because you can import all your data, research notes, pdfs, brain storming mind maps, and so on, and place them next to each other as you write. Scrivener can also take snap shots of your different drafts, which I find hugely helpful - no more stacks of 'previous versions' files when I write.

For taking notes on the go I often use Circus Ponies notebook on my Air or iPad, or Daedalus and Notability (the latter for hand writing) on my iPad. If it's more a brain storming/ outlining type of job, I use CurioCore on my Air, or a mind mapping app (iTHoughtsDH) on my iPad which I later sync to Curio. A lot of people seem to also use Evernote for writing notes on the go, personally I use that more as a personal admin app (directions, recipes, receipts, that kind of stuff).

Regarding screen, I find the Air find to write on. My iPad is definitely crisper, but I really love my Air.
 
nightlong said:
That sounds great, amazed you can fit all that on a small screen. So you are looking down all the time when writing, with the MBA in your lap? The ergonomics sound bad but you must have worked out ways around that.

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Are you a scriptwriter.... ?
Click to expand...

No, actually it all fits nicely on the screen. I'm not looking down as I use the laptop while my legs are propped up. I tend to assume a relaxed position when I write. Not a scriptwriter, but a writer of novels.
 
So happy to stumble across this thread! I will start out saying I am not even close to being a writer, but my fiance is, and in my opinion a pretty fantastic one for not going to school for journalism. I just bought her a MBA for this exact purpose. She also has an original iPad. How would you recommend she gets started? And what programs should she start to use? She has a bunch of ideas written down but not to much actually typed up. Don't know if it makes a difference, but she will be writing fiction. Thanks for the help!
 
dwburnell said:
So happy to stumble across this thread! I will start out saying I am not even close to being a writer, but my fiance is, and in my opinion a pretty fantastic one for not going to school for journalism. I just bought her a MBA for this exact purpose. She also has an original iPad. How would you recommend she gets started? And what programs should she start to use? She has a bunch of ideas written down but not to much actually typed up. Don't know if it makes a difference, but she will be writing fiction. Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

Welcome, and your girlfriend too. By getting started do you mean with technology, or in writing? There's quite a lot of information on here about various apps, how and why people use them, from the most standard word processor MS Word to the writer-specific Scrivener, and also Apple's Pages and the simple but effective iA Writer.

Getting started with writing ... Well, there is much debate about whether creative writing can be taught. I think it's a bit precious when people say writing can't be taught ... like, you are born a genius and it all comes naturally and easily or ... forget it! Absolute rubbish, brilliant musicians and painters study for years, but writers are expected to know how to create their equivalent of a symphony - a novel - with no instruction whatsoever. Another myth is that you can learn everything simply from reading great literature. Yes, well, you can learn a lot, but you are reading polished, completed work, it can be very daunting to compare your first sketches or even tenth drafts with work of this calibre.

So I think creative writing courses can help to inspire, encourage, and keep you from taking a very long time by trial and error to reinvent the wheel with technicalities that you can learn much more quickly from an experienced writer.

I've been a journalist for a long time, but not much of that training and writing helps with novels, it's a very different craft. These disciplines carried over from there, do help me:

Sit down and start writing, something will happen. Don't be intimidated by a blank screen, don't worry if what you write at first is awful, just keep going. I learned a long time ago to separate the creator and the editor in myself ... if the editor is called in too soon it can be very destructive, if the creator is left to meander too long, nothing will ever get organised and finished.

This might not work for everyone, but these things have helped me.
 
Very well put Nightlong. And, personally, that's why I like the look of Scrivener. I've never used anything like that, but it looks great precisely BECAUSE it gives you a place to suddenly start writing creatively... and then lets the editor come in and tidy it up. So you write that great scene that just popped into your head, and you write it with the passion of the fresh vision. Then you save it as "Battle scene" or "Conversation by the Roses" or "The pizza fight" or whatever, and fill in a 3 line sketch as to what happened in those creative pages. It's now labelled.

Now, will the "Conversation by the Roses" happen before the "Battle Scene" or after? And where will the pizza fight go?

Too easy with Scrivener! Just drop and drag those 'summary stickies' around.

I LOVE that idea. I was trying to do it in word by using lots of headings, and then just dropping and dragging the headings up and down in Outline view. But it's no where near as tidy as Scrivener's Stickies, and the 'headings' would have to get pretty long to have as much summary description as plonked onto Scrivener.

What simply AMAZES me is that Word haven't got it yet! Have they? Surely there's a function like that coming in word? I'm amazed they don't have it.

What about Pages? The thing that really bugs me is that Scrivener isn't working on iPad. I'd LOVE to have something like that for iPad, because that's about all I can afford for my writing 'hobby'.
 
I dont have an Air (I realize these are the Air forums) but I have had tremendous experience with the iPad and external keyboard (I use the Adonit Writer Plus). I use iAWriter with dropbox.

What features of having a full blown mac really help? (this is an honest question not being facetious)

I find that I am able to focus for longer periods of time, plus the battery life and ability to write notes on a stylus is so useful.
 
TaKashMoney said:
I dont have an Air (I realize these are the Air forums) but I have had tremendous experience with the iPad and external keyboard (I use the Adonit Writer Plus). I use iAWriter with dropbox.

What features of having a full blown mac really help? (this is an honest question not being facetious)

I find that I am able to focus for longer periods of time, plus the battery life and ability to write notes on a stylus is so useful.
Click to expand...

When you get down to it .. The It is of course content and skill with language and it doesn't really matter what tools you use or how full-blown your Mac is, but as Eclipse was describing ... There's a lot of organising in structure and how you tell the story .. If it's not just a simply told auto-biography. I think Scrivener for example, is a very much more organised way of doing what writers have always done with heaps of journals, scraps of plot and character bits of paper tacked to walls and endless Word documents piling up in separate folders and so on.

I agree, Eclipse, with your comments about Word. I upset someone in this thread by calling it a clunky old dinosaur ... I meant that considering how long it has been around it hasn't progressed a great deal in terms of creative 'word processing'. How much technology you need comes down to how you like to work and what else you do with a computer ... I've already posted a rant about that here.

It's also about how you want to export the work, and whether you want to combine other media with words in, say, ebooks or other multimedia projects.

I think it's a very exciting time for writing, whatever form it takes.

----------

I think Scrivener for iPad is coming. And as has been mentioned Pages on iPad and mac can sync.
 
Great teachers

Further to what I have just posted ... I think Virginia Woolf would have loved a funky laptop and Scrivener ... She was no doubt a genius but she did something like 40 drafts of most of her fiction. She also, in non-fiction, offered this wonderfully droll piece of advice on avoiding boring and bad writing ... Which, she thought, was too concerned with the dreadful business of getting from breakfast to lunch!
Another favourite teacher of mine, George Orwell in his Politics And English Language essay summarised in just a few pages the worst word crimes.

Who are your favourite writing teachers?
 
I dunno if I posted in here already, but I do a good bit of writing, and the 13" MBA + iPad with Pages is great. You can sync all your writing between devices and just pick up and work on something with either device. It's pretty great!
 
eclipse said:
I'm curious about screensize - do you professional writers think Scrivener on an iPad will work, just from a sheer size point of view?
Click to expand...

I don't think they could/should use the same exact frame layout that they do in their desktop version, as that would take up valuable editing space on the right side. If they had auto-hiding or a smaller indicator of where you were in your folder hierarchy that would be more efficient.

In general, it could work if they take into account the limited real estate without limiting the workflow writers are used to in the desktop version, and taking advantage of 'touch' features, e.g., dragging to rearrange, selective highlighting, ex.

I'm waiting for Final Draft for the iPad to release in a few weeks, but am wary of similar issues in execution as well.
 
nightlong said:
Who are your favourite writing teachers?
Click to expand...

This is one of the best books I've ever read on writing.
http://www.marktredinnick.com.au/index.php/writing/more/writing_well_the_essential_guide/

My wife is a graphic designer and we meet lots of editors, especially in church circles. The author below is not a church type, but is just so good at teaching and inspiring writers that these church Pastors arranged a workshop to hear him speak on writing. His book is well worth it, and I'm going to revisit it for years to come.

It used to be the "Little Red Writing Book" which I own; the version above has more US examples than Australian examples. The "Little Red Writing Book" has a twin: the "Little Green Grammar Book" which I also own. Except... there was a problem. I wanted the little Green Grammar book, but ended up with the Large Print edition somehow when I ordered it on the net! :confused:;):D
 
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Doesn't anybody use Evernote?

Not a writer, but it works great for sharing notes across my iphone, ipad and laptop and probably even my soon to come MBA.

I use it to write blog posts, take pictures, keep track of inspiration and write stuff in general.
 
I was wondering if Pages and Keynote on the iPad are watered down versions of the Mac versions. I have an iPad, but no Mac yet. I'll probably try an 11" MBA, since the 13" is so similar to my current Lenovo x220, but I figured I'd wait a few weeks to see if the 13" rMBP gets released, and if so, for what price (and I could very well end up with the 13" MBA). I've always written in Word, but now have Scrivener, and I was thinking it might make sense to familiarize myself with Pages and Keynote now.

Also, do any of you recommend resources for legal issues in ebook publishing (e.g., clearing photos and videos, linking to websites, etc.)? What about errors and omissions insurance? Anything I'm missing from the world of self-publishing?

Thanks.
 
iamsen47 said:
Doesn't anybody use Evernote?

Not a writer, but it works great for sharing notes across my iphone, ipad and laptop and probably even my soon to come MBA.

I use it to write blog posts, take pictures, keep track of inspiration and write stuff in general.
Click to expand...
How much does Evernote cost? Does it have the plot drop-and-drag functionality of the Scrivener 'stickies' & storyboard?
 
I've now written 1 1/4 novels using my 13" MBA 2011 and Scrivener. MBA lets me sit in a comfortable chair with my feet up and the computer on my lap. I have no issues whatsoever with the screen (as long as I have my reading glasses).

I used to use Pages (I'm allergic to microsloth), but the organizational tools in Scrivener have saved an immense amount of time. The ability to keep my research, story ideas, and the text itself organized in what Scrivener calls the "Binder" is a huge timesaver.

And it seamlessly compiles (outputs) to the most useful formats. With a few clicks, I can create a pdf in standard manuscript format, a Word manuscript to share with my editor, or an ePub so I can review my day's work on my iPad in bed.

Having said all that, even with the best tools I've ever had, the books don't seem to write themselves.
 
Eclipse ... I have the Little Red Book too. Evernote is free, in the Apple App store, for ipad and macs.
 
Hi all,
I was playing with scrivener and watched a tutorial. Very cool! However, he imported a mind-map and I have to admit to finding that an attractive idea.

So I'm asking writers if they used mind-maps, what software they use to generate a quick, easy, FREE template of their plots? Just over here in this thread.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=15524282#post15524282

PS: The storyboarding in Scrivener will probably do most of my work, but I like to plot out some things in graphics and lines and flowcharts. Thanks.
 
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