Your Author Tools

[lovecraft68]

Too bad Word doesn't run on Linux! Never liked it anyways.

Back to the Linux bragging again, eh!

Well, whatever makes you happy, but I'll sound like my old man here.

No matter what you're using in whatever you're doing, its only as good as what's behind it. Fancy programs mean nothing if you can't write to save your life.

Of course, my father's referring to this was right after he took a guy who had a $400 McDermott cue for five hundred dollars, using a cracked house cue with an almost completely flat tip.

I always remember that and to this day, leave my Lucasi cue at home when going to a bar.

 

[sr71plt]

Back to the Linux bragging again, eh!

Well, whatever makes you happy, but I'll sound like my old man here.

No matter what you're using in whatever you're doing, its only as good as what's behind it. Fancy programs mean nothing if you can't write to save your life.

Of course, my father's referring to this was right after he took a guy who had a $400 McDermott cue for five hundred dollars, using a cracked house cue with an almost completely flat tip.

I always remember that and to this day, leave my Lucasi cue at home when going to a bar.

This is really quite funny. Substitute "cue" for "Linux" in this exchange and you've got the exact same bragging.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is really quite funny. Substitute "cue" for "Linux" in this exchange and you've got the exact same bragging.

Nope, read again, where did I ever say I was good? Just got a nice cue.

 

[_Lynn_]

Wow, that sucks! I went and checked right after I replied to your post and everything in my "story" folder opens and is there.

Matter of fact I just opened 2 old chapters of my series and pasted them into a new doc to rework into a story for amazon. The e-mail was over a year old and still good.

Did they corrupt somehow?

A scan picked up a corrupt file on the PC. But it's all better now.

 

[SexySatsuma]

Tools for Writing

I use Word to do all my writing and I self-publish my all my books. Make sure you back up your writing folder. I have a hard drive and a stick that I back up my writing on. All the best!

Lana Yves, Author of SexAtional Satsuma:Confessions of a Naughty Sex Therapist. Book now available on Amazon; Barnes and Noble.

I've been thinking about doing more writing that I have done in the past. However I am curious to know what tools other authors use as their primary writing platform? I've been looking at Google Chromebook and Chrombox systems, and while I like the concept there are a lot of things I don't like about it. I don't like the fact that you almost always have to have and internet connection, that there is not true offline mode in which work can be done without an internet connection. I don't like the idea, however remote, that someone could possibily have access to my works before I am ready to publish them. I don't like the

If there is one good thing I can say though, is that if your laptop is ever stolen and you are using a chromebook your work will never be lost. Backups aside, with a chromebook you would just need to have a computer with a web broser to do your writing.

So my quesiton to all the authors out there is if you needed a dedicated writing platform, which would you choose? Would you choose a tradtional pc with a word processing applicaiton or would you use a chromebook? If there are any authors out there who do use Google products as their dedicated writing platforms, what are you thoughts?

While Google's motto is "Do no Evil" I can't help but think somewhere a google employee sits behind his keyboard endlessly spying on Google users, monitoring their habits. But all that aside if your primary writing was erotica, which would you use as a dedicated platform?

 

[TE999]

I compose on MS Word and back up on flash drives.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I use NeoOffice; it's inferior to Word in most regards, but the only one that really bugs me is the time it takes to load. I don't demand much from a word-processor, as long as it can handle bold, italic, underline, find/replace, and word count. But next time I have more money than debts I'm going to look at upgrading stuff, since I'm now in a position where I can deduct it as a work expense.

When I realised my laptop was over five years old I finally did the right thing and bought a backup drive. (Then a couple of weeks later the backup drive died, so I bought another one.)

 

[sun_sea_sky]

I just use a straight text editor. Doesn't even do underlines or crap like that, so I put in the markup for the occasional italics or bold. Good thing about it, I can get a word count quickly.

Files are saved on a TrueCrypt volume (look it up if you don't know what it is). That can be an ordinary file on your hard drive, but without the password, no-one else can look at it. Then you don't have to worry about your spouse/kids/boss opening the file when you are out of the house. TrueCrypt can be set to auto-dismount after half an hour, if you wander off and forget to do it yourself.

The editor makes a backup when you save, so you can go back one revision. Then periodically I copy to a totally different drive (also TrueCrypt) in case the hard disk crashes.

To whoever emails themselves stuff, I suppose you know that emails are kept on file at the place you use for emailing? That's how they track company directors that conspire amongst themselves via email and then "delete" the emails. They aren't really deleted. It would be OK if you encrypt the files before emailing them.

For Smashwords, which I have started submitting to, I reluctantly installed Word 2007. Followed Mark Coker's instructions exactly and it worked perfectly. However Open Office didn't, not did Pages on the Mac.

I'll give Word credit, it did pick up stuff like grammar problems (duplicated words) and two spaces between words. Some of its grammar suggestions I ignore, others probably make the writing better.

 

[ILmonamour]

I compose primarily in MS Word, save in folders. Back up each project with jump drives.

 

[topace]

Back to the Linux bragging again, eh!

Well, whatever makes you happy, but I'll sound like my old man here.

No matter what you're using in whatever you're doing, its only as good as what's behind it. Fancy programs mean nothing if you can't write to save your life. [more]

I can write quite well, as evident from my stories popularity at my archive. 4000 hits already and they haven't been up for 3 months yet.

Can you brag of similar numbers?

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Hacksaw.

Buzzsaw if things get intense.

Wait, what are we talking about?

 

[topace]

Hacksaw.

Buzzsaw if things get intense.

Wait, what are we talking about?

Writing tools.

LC68,
I can brag of my numbers and ratings and I'm willing to show screenshots as proof!

4000 hits and an average rating of 10 on a ten point scale.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I can write quite well, as evident from my stories popularity at my archive. 4000 hits already and they haven't been up for 3 months yet.

Can you brag of similar numbers?

Might not want to challenge LC to a votes and views dick-swinging contest. He IS on the top 250 authors list.

 

[topace]

Yeah, but what about the last 3 months C2BK?

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Yeah, but what about the last 3 months C2BK?

What about them?

 

[topace]

Has he gotten 4000 views in the last 3 months?

That's what I'm braggin' about, as well as perfect scores for my stories.

He said that the tools goodness depends on what's behind them, so I'm offering proof I've got great tools with a great brain of a writer behind them.

 

[MendonFishers]

This thread provided some interesting reading.

I do most of my writing in my mind. It might be at a stop light waiting for traffic or it might be people watching a Starbucks. It is here that my stories develop.

To move these stories from my head to paper I use MS Word on my PC or my BlackBerry PlayBook.

The most important tool I use is my editor. He bring me back on track when I wander as well as correcting mistakes in spelling and grammar .

As to backing up your work. Well try and imagine how you'd feel if you just lost 150,000 words. If you enjoy those feelings, don't bother with backups.

Nuff said.

 

[Tyro999]

Has he gotten 4000 views in the last 3 months?

That's what I'm braggin' about, as well as perfect scores for my stories.

He said that the tools goodness depends on what's behind them, so I'm offering proof I've got great tools with a great brain of a writer behind them.

Congratulations. With that last line, you ensured that I'll never read any of your stories. I don't read the work of blowhards.

 

[HankDolworth]

redacted.

topace: Oh, nevermind, it's your own archive. Congrats.

 

[topace]

Congratulations. With that last line, you ensured that I'll never read any of your stories. I don't read the work of blowhards.

And I don't read the works of jerks and name-callers.

 

[Neonurotic]

Scrivener for Windows, which I love because planning is everything to me. Then I do a backup through email and a encrypted back up on my external drive.

 

[visioneer]

I write using OpenOffice and FocusWriter under Ubuntu. I also use Artha to augment OO's built in thesaurus.

Before abandoning Windows, I preferred to write using Roughdraft - an excellent rtf editor.