Write Every Day: Day 2

[the_siobhan]

I'm working overtime tonight so I'm not sure how much work I'll get done today. Doesn't help that my office is freezing right now. (It snowed last night and it's about 2 C outside right now. By Friday it's supposed to go back up to almost 20 C. Go home November, you're drunk.)

I do all my actual writing in Scrivener. (Which I love.) I started doing my research notes in there as well, but I found the flipping back and forth between notes and story was mucking up my concentration, so now I have the story open on my laptop while I take notes on loose-leaf paper that I can move around and add to at will. And then I had a couple of those "ooo, I know what I can do with that scene" moments when I was doing something else that I scribbled down on coloured post-its and stuck to my paper notes.

By the time I'm done this project I fully expect it to look like this:



So today's question is how you do your actual writing? Do you write long hand, do you use word, or some other dedicated app? Do you use dictation software? (I've always wanted to try dictation, especially now that I have a private workspace.)



Day 2 Tally:
china_shop, shadaras, falkner, luzula, badly_knitted, alexseanchai, trobadora, saki101, sylvanwitch, brainwane, thevetia, lferion, cornerofmadness, nafs, sakana17, yasaman, solo, phrenk, auroracloud, ysilme, sanguinity, silveradept, alexcat, iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans



Day 1 Tally:
china_shop, sylvanwitch, luzula, badly_knitted, trobadora, falkner, alexseanchai, silveradept, shadaras, sanguinity, thevetia, nafs, cornerofmadness, lferion, sakana17, alexcat, marvelouscity, saki101, yasaman, solo, auroracloud, phrenk, shopfront, brainwane, dreamwriteremmy, ysilme, iberiandoctor, firecat, carenejeans

Let me know if I've missed your name. And participation is always open, so feel free to drop in any time.

Comments

[shadaras]

I write almost everything in gdocs nowadays. Sometimes I think about learning Scrivener or some other program meant for such things, but... gdocs works for me. :)

I've written 2k today (a gift and treat for a flash exchange) and intend to write some more this evening if I can—or at least reread some exchange fic for editing purposes.

(I should write the fic that's due this weekend but eh I'll get around to that in another day or two, realistically.)

[the_siobhan]

Why mess around with a winning system?

Well done with your word count!

[falkner]

Checking in for day 2.

Today was only an alibi 100 words, which isn't good for Nanowrimo, but I managed my time poorly so it's all on me. It also doesn't help that I recently had some health issues and I'm currently hopped-up on antibiotics and feeling generally woozy. I will do better tomorrow!

[badly_knitted]

Oh no! Feel better!

[china_shop]

Current Mood: shivering in antici...

Ha! Oh dear! *sends a snuggly blanket*

I'm still on my 30-day free trial of Scrivener, which makes me reluctant to open my WIP and poke at it unless I'm planning to do something substantial, because I don't want to run out of days. /total dork

3rd: finished a thing (involved making a few beta edits, futzing with the first para for ages, and giving it a final read-through/tweak)! I was planning to start a YT treat, but I think I've run out of time. *scampers off*

[the_siobhan]

On the plus side, it's only for another day or so and then the temperature goes back up. And we have somebody coming to service the furnace on Friday. We spent a lot of money on insulation back when we were doing our initial round of renovations and that's probably saving my butt right now.

I get what you mean about the trial. It probably took me most of the 30-days to get comfortable with using it.

Well done on finishing your project!

[luzula]

I do all my writing in LibreOffice (the free version of Word, basically).

Wordcount for 2nd of November: 500 on poly fic + 500 on a Yuletide treat
Total wordcount on poly fic: 32,100

Failed to get started on my actual Yuletide fic, but I wrote most of a treat, which is a good warm-up, I suppose. Also I did research for the poly fic by asking my sister and my best friend to tell me about pregnancy and giving birth.

...and then I discovered moths eating the socks in my drawers. /o\

[the_siobhan]

Oh yes, I use libreoffice at home. (And word at work, which makes me stumble occasionally.)

That is an excellent wordcount and also an excellent form of research. I would offer my services as a consult, but I think my experiences of childbirth and pregnancy were pretty unusual.

My condolences about the socks. Every drawer in my house has cedar balls in it because we are plagued with the things. And they will eat non-wool organic fibres if they can't get wool, as we found out when we discovered a nest of the things in a pile of cat-hair that had collected under a bed.

[badly_knitted]

I do all my writing on my computer because my handwriting has always been abysmal and arthritis doesn't help. If I hold a pen for more than a few minutes my fingers lock. I occasionally jot notes on pieces of paper, but a few days later I'm scratching my head trying to work out what the squiggles are supposed to say *headdesk* I use ms word because that's what's on my ancient and increasingly cranky laptop, plus I'm still very much a dunce when it comes to anything technical. Once I get used to something I stick with it. My brain does not appreciate change.

Nov 2nd (almost typed Oct! I keep forgetting it's a new month) - 921 words, 4 double drabbles and editing on a fic for posting. Plus I did the promo post on my journal for my new community, just didn't count that ;)

Also got some more knitting done!

[the_siobhan]

Does knitting not bother your arthritis then? I have similar issues with my fingers and I just assumed knitting was off the table.

And I hear you about change - I think I'm very good at it, but I am tapped out on change for this year thanks.

Congrats on the word count!

[alexseanchai]

I'm a few hundred more words into "j'ai reve". fight choreography sucks as usual.

I draft in locked Dreamwidth posts, since that means I'm drafting in close enough to real HTML that it's handy for posting to AO3 (and for instantly spotting typos like <e/m> that I might not catch in a text editor, but that will ruin my whole day if I save the draft on AO3 like that, bc some such typos mean I have to remove tags from every single subsequent paragraph), and I can get at it from any wifi-connected device I have, and if I leave or edit a top-level comment I get a snapshot of the draft in my inbox.

[the_siobhan]

That's a really creative solution. I hadn't thought of that.

Congrats on words!

[trobadora]

I write in Word, most of the time. Sometimes in email drafts. If I make notes in longhand it's just because I'm not at my computer, and I type them up later. I found it works best for me if I just keep everything in one file, even if I c&p bits and pieces around.

Today I poked at my FemslashEx fic a tiny bit (little more than an alibi sentence), and did some canon revision for Yuletide. I'm very early for that, but I want things to have time to percolate before I have to seriously tackle writing my Yuletide fic.

[the_siobhan]

When I was working on site and I had a burst of inspiration I would type it up in notepad and email it to home. Now home and work are the same place and all the lines are blurry.

Revision is important, and percolating is important, so congrats on your progress!

[saki101]

I hope tomorrow is less hectic!

2 November check-in: Three sentences. Still tinkering with the notes on the fic just finished. I was considering putting a visual image before or after the title and wasted some time looking through candidates I already had. In the end, I thought not. So, not a productive day at all creation-wise.

I use the MS Word programme that came with my laptop, well, what it's been updated to since I got the laptop. I don't usually write anything long-hand unless I'm making a map or floorplan to keep things straight or, very rarely, a timeline. Everything else, I type up and when I take out whole sentences or paragraphs, I keep them at the bottom of my document under the heading: Outtakes. Sometimes, I go back and use some of them. I also try to keep links to sources or images or music that I think might be relevant. Often I don't use them, but before I started keeping track of the links/cites at the end of the writing document, if I wanted to consult them again or link them it would take far too much time finding them again.

[the_siobhan]

I'm working OT for the next couple of weeks and then I take two weeks of vacation. So it's like the same number of hours just... compressed.

You sound very organized. I tend to lose of tracks of my outtakes and links if I keep them in the same place, which is how I ended up with the mess you see above.

Still a semi-productive day? I think pondering is time that has to be spent, even if it doesn't feel like useful things come out at the end.

[sylvanwitch]

I am strictly a Word girl, though I do own Scrivener. I've tried at least three times to get into it, and it always seems so complicated and, for me anyway, counter-intuitive. That said, there are times when find-and-replace in a VERY LONG narrative outline doesn't work, and I spend a lot of frustrating time scrolling through to find the detail I'd forgotten. I outline, narrative outline, and draft in Word, each in separate documents. It's...probably not entirely wieldy? Lol! But because I'm so used to it, it works for me, you know?

I'm always fascinated to hear about other people's processes, though!

Today, I added 463 words to the novel.

[the_siobhan]

I really like it, but I'm probably not even using half of the options it comes with. The learning curve on a new piece of software can really put me off, even if I know it's going to be easier once I've got the hang of it.

As I said elsewhere, I'm usually pretty good with change but my change bucket is kinda full right now.

Congrats on words!

Checkin and how I write

[brainwane]

This is my first time writing a book so I may change this method, but right now, I write in emacs (an open source text editor that's been around for decades).

Also, I am basically using the version control system git plus this script and .gitconfig tweaking to give me "word count since I last ran a git commit".

Words today: 652.

Re: Checkin and how I write

[the_siobhan]

That is an appropriately geeky response to my question. :-) How do you like emacs? I use LibreOffice at home.

Congrats on words!

[thevetia]

397 words on the epic AU, instead of the short story I was planning to finish. Oh well, the block on that one will go away eventually. I hope.

I've tried Scrivener, and really want to use it, but each time I seem to get more wound up in multiple story versions I can't keep track of. Some day I'll get comfortable with it.

I'm using gdocs mostly now, because I want to be able to work on more than one device, but I'm not enthusiastic about it. I write longhand sometimes, especially when I'm feeling really blocked and putting it on paper somehow makes me less judge-y of the words I'm using. I end up opening multiple files in gdocs containing different scenes and notes and then eventually I have go through them all and cut and paste and merge and it's not very efficient!

[the_siobhan]

I like Scrivener, but there is definitely a learning curve. And I hear you about the multiple versions - I need to keep track of the titles better I think.

I think writing on paper uses a different part of your brain, if that makes sense? I like doing it, but arthritis makes it less practical these days.

Congrats on words, regardless if they come where you most want them to. :-)

[lferion]

Day 2 - 102 words on one of the many WIPs I have floating about. Posted yesterday's double drabble to Fan Flashworks after a smidgen of editing. Posted to my DW as well.

[the_siobhan]

Well done on wording! :-)

[cornerofmadness]

I sometimes write by hand and all other times I work in Word.

I also love me some sprints and tonight that spurred me to get 3152 on my nano tonight. yay me.

[the_siobhan]

That's an amazing output! Well done!

Now go get some rest. :-p

[nafs]

I use LibreOffice for typing things up (hi, Linux user :D), and sometimes JotterPad on my tablet or even the notes app on my phone but most writing gets done longhand first, or at least starts there.
I both wrote longhand and typed it up after, so I can claim 328 words for today.

[the_siobhan]

I have fond memories of sitting in a pub with a notebook and a beer. My hands won't let me do it as a regular thing though. (Never mind the current state of pubs.)

Well done on words!

[sakana17]

Day 2: 383 words.

Most of my notes are in long hand. Not very organized--in various notebooks and scraps of paper. I do my actual writing in Word or Google Docs.

[the_siobhan]

I'll make space for you on my board. ;-)

Well done on words!

[yasaman]

Day 2: 445 words on my Yuletide fic! Might end up cutting a bunch of this for wrecking the pacing, but that's a problem for future me.

[the_siobhan]

Well done!

[solo]

Day 2: 303 words which, hey, is about 40 more than day 1.

I write in Word at this point but will try out Scrivener for the next project. Importing this one seemed too much hassle. I very rarerly write longhand, because my handwriting is awful and I find it too slow anyway.

[the_siobhan]

Well done on your words!

As others have pointed out, there is a bit of a learning curve with Scrivener. Not too steep, I don't think? I think I probably don't exploit it fully yet and I've been using it for years.

[satoyan]

Day 2: 2050 words on nano. I also have a list with 29 items so far of things I need to figure out and then go back and fix, mostly in terms of worldbuilding, because I did not do enough planning. :D Hopefully by making the list as I go I won't find it too overwhelming to do edits later, should a completed draft be achieved.

Because I don't have a good writing habit in place, I am doubtful about reaching a completed draft. These first two days have both been days off work for me, and I always have the most motivation early on in a project. I'm hoping I can keep it up all month, but if not, even an alibi sentence a day would be more consistent writing than I've done in years. :D

[the_siobhan]

You're smart, it's the trying to do all my editing afterwards that's tripping me up now.

Well done on your words! I hope you're able to figure out a groove to get you through the rest of the month.

[auroracloud]

Some 1,200 more words on the space opera! Still below the official NaNoWriMo targets, but within the reasonably adjusted targets. :-D It was still mostly infodumps, but there was more dialogue now, yay!

I've been using Scrivener for years, but just lately it's started to act up, freezing all the time and needing to be force quit and restarted. I've no idea what's causing it, and I've tried restarting my laptop and so forth. Should start poking around the internet to see if other people have the same problem, maybe it has trouble with the latest MacOS update or something. I'm miffed, because I've just started NaNo, and my chaotic creative process likes Scrivener for the ease of writing things out of order and rearranging them as I like, and having my previous planning notes all in the same place as where I do the writing of the draft. Anyway, as an emergency measure, I started a Word document for my novel, and turned chapter numbers into properly formatted headers and made an index out of them in the beginning of the document, so that I'll be more easily able to navigate into individual scenes. But I prefer Scrivener. I've used it for nearly all my creative efforts on the computer for the past few years.

I also handwrite quite a bit, even more eagerly since I started using fountain pens and found I really liked the way they slide on the paper. Ball-point pens hurt my hand more quickly. Some felt-tip pens can also work, but it's hard to find ones that feel good in my hand and don't bleed through the paper. Anyway, I have sooooo many notebooks full of scribblings. I especially use them for all kinds of brainstorming and planning, for trying out scenes when I'm not yet focusedly working on writing a whole manuscript, for writing exercises and freewriting and descriptions, and my very occasional poetry efforts.

I'd love to try dictation some day, but am not convinced that there's yet good enough software for my language available.

[ysilme]

That sounds rather frustrating about your Scrivener! I'm using the PC version so I can't compare software-related issues, and didn't have any lately, too. I had problems with freezing, but the reason for that was that I'm syncing Scrivener on my dropbox because I use two different computers, and we had some internet issues for a while which caused the freezing, which I could easily remedy by going into flight mode when the issues appeared. Probably a complete reinstall might help in your case? I keep my fingers crossed!

[ysilme]

Go home November, you're drunk
LOL well said!
I love Scrivener, too; without it I'd be lost, I fear. And even with all its options I kind of need more, as I managed to get my stuff so convoluted.... /O\ I am looking loosely for a replacement, but for the simple reason that I'm in the (very slow) process of migrating to Linux, and Scrivener has no current Linux version and is not intending to go there again. I've already found out that I can use Scrivener in a virutal machine, but I'd still need a Windows license for that which kind of defies part of the purpose for me. I've already found something, but didn't get beyond downloading it and then being distracted by stuff. XD
I'm also using Scapple by literatureandlatte (the Scrivener company) for mindmapping, which I find useful for some of the planning; but one of the issues I have with it is that to get the overview of my notes I need, I'd need a screen twice as large as I have, or otherwise can't read the notes, and enlarging and minimizing them all the time gives me a headache. But other than that, it's awesome for this kind of thing.
I also got myself a pro version of Campfire from last NaNo's offer, which I'll be mainly using for my main novel project which is a fantasy novel, to get my worldbuilding in a more easily accessible shape. But so far I don't even know how it really works yet - corona anxiety affected my writing a lot, and even more so my ability to check out new things (which simply didn't happen). Perhaps it'd be a good idea to try the software out with my current WIP - I need to get back into every detail of a lot of stuff anyway, and doing so by transferring the info into that software might actually be a good idea. *ponders*
Edit to add: I sometimes also write on my phone when not at home, with the help of a nifty bluetooth keyboard. I used to use jotterpad for that which was really great, and had the paid version so I could use google drive to sync my documents - copying my current page from scrivener onto a gdoc, working at it on my phone, or in a new document but having the gdoc as reference, and then copying the page back into Scrivener. But recently jotterpad changed their policy or something, and I now can't use my previously paid versoin any longer after switching to a new phone, and are required to buy it again. This is a no-go for me - I don't mind paying for a good app, but not again just because I can't port my old license or so to a new phone! I looked for another app and am currently very satisfied with iA Writer, which is free and syncs perfectly with gdocs. I haven't used it very long yet, though.

For my tally, I hope it's ok for you that I'll report back in always on the most recent day if I missed previous days, like right now? I wrote both on the 1st and 2nd, managed the daily NaNo goal and then some, and am really satisified at this point.

[the_siobhan]

You've done an impressive amount of product testing. Let me know what you end up thinking of Campfire, that looks interesting.

I'm sad to hear Scrivener isn't available on Linux, because the computers I use to remote into work is running Linux and I'm really liking it.

Also yes, absolutely OK to do updates in chunks. Whatever works best for you. Glad to hear the last couple of days have been good to you!

[sanguinity]

I do a lot of my drafting longhand, in cheap spiral notebooks. I started doing that last winter, when I began this new job and the only morning writing time I could find was on the bus -- I could swing a notebook in that scenario, but not a laptop. And then the pandemic hit and I was suddenly working from home. I kept up the longhand because it was a respite from the narrowness of living my entire life through this one computer screen. All through the pandemic, pen and paper has been a rock and a comfort. If nothing else, it's now a physical cue for my storywriting brain to kick in, and suddenly I'm somewhere else, dealing with imaginary people and their imaginary problems. It's lovely. When I try to write on the computer nowadays, I'm not having NEARLY that kind of success at switching brainspaces.

At least weekly, I try to make the time to type up (and heavily revise) my longhand. I do that into google docs, because I can get to those files from work computers as well as home computers. I have between one to three files for any given story: the story itself, a file of deleted bits, and a file of notes (research, outlines, discussions with my cheerleader/betas.)


Checkin for the 2nd: page of longhand!

[the_siobhan]

I totally get how the physical act of holding a pen can be a tool to put you into the writing zone. There is a part of my brain that is still convinced that proper writing only takes place while sitting in a pub with a notebook.

Well done on day 2. :-)

[silveradept]

...wait for it...

I draft in Google Keep, the notes system, cause it keeps things synchronized across all the devices I write on. There is a pesky character limit, but I can usually start another note and keep going from there, and it serves as a rough idea of how many words are in a project - each note contains about 3k worth of words. So long as I remember to get everything in the right order, I can then shuffle my notes into AO3 or wherever else I'm posting to and go from there. Occasionally, that means having to dump it all in a document for a beta to look at, which then becomes the official copy and occasionally means I have to rework the doc into correct HTML to post.

[the_siobhan]

Hey, if it works for you.

I've never posted anything to AO3, I hasn't really thought about the fact that you would have to tag everything by hand.

[greylock]

It snowed last night and it's about 2 C outside right now. By Friday it's supposed to go back up to almost 20 C. Go home November, you're drunk.</>

In the same window it swung from 37C here, to <20C and raining. In November!