I\u2019ve been planning out a workshop I\u2019m due to run in February about software for writers. Easy, I thought: Scrivener, OmniOutliner, Evernote, Drafts \u2013 oh. Slight problem. Most of the people coming are PC users so that\u2019s Drafts and OmniOutliner out. And they\u2019ve just had a workshop specifically about Scrivener.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got about six weeks to come up with this workshop and I\u2019ve already changed it a dozen times in my head but right now what I\u2019m thinking is this. I\u2019ll take these people through the typical stages of writing anything, from first scratches of an idea, through research if any, through false starts if many, and on to the rest. Writing, editing, revising, rewriting and what you need to do when getting that text to publishers or editors or whatever.<\/p>\n
And along the way, I\u2019ll show them how there are types of software that can help. So for instance, toward the start I\u2019ll cover mind mapping tools that help some people capture chaotic ideas. I\u2019ll find them a couple of Windows mind mapping tools but I don\u2019t see any problem with demonstrating the idea using a Mac and iPad one that I genuinely use often. (That\u2019s called MindNode and I just this week wrote a review of the latest version for AppleInsider<\/a>.)<\/p>\n I think this will work and I think it could even be very good, which is nice for me and unlikely to be nice for you as you\u2019re not invited. Sorry about that. But in noodling through this all week, I\u2019ve realised that I will definitely also include ways of capturing those fleeting ideas you know have potential but you can\u2019t use them in whatever you\u2019re writing now.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve got your own system for doing this and I bet you forget things just as much as I do. But in my case I\u2019m going to use the fact that apps work well in combination. So, for instance, there\u2019s a great iPhone and iPad tool called Drafts<\/a>. It\u2019s a bare-bone app for writing in but what it does that\u2019s so good is that it is ready immediately. Tap the app, start writing: no having to choose New Document or pick a template, just open and write.<\/p>\n When you put the phone down and immediately think of something else, pick it up again and start writing again. Drafts gives you a blank new page every time, right away.<\/p>\n But it also lets you take action on things and the one thing I do is this. When I\u2019ve written something in the dead of night that I foolishly think will be both useful and coherent tomorrow, I tap a button in Drafts that I\u2019ve called Story Ideas. Then before my head has fallen back onto the pillow, Drafts has taken that new text and appended it to the end of a very, very, very long Evernote<\/a> entry where I collect all of these things.<\/p>\n The point is to be fast at writing them down before they\u2019re gone and the point is to then always know exactly where to go to read these ideas again.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where I fall down: I never remember to look at the Story Ideas note.<\/p>\n Or I didn\u2019t. <\/p>\n I looked this morning, while pondering whether to tell you all this stuff about a workshop you can\u2019t go to, and I am astonished at how many notes and thoughts there are in this Evernote pile. Since 05:50 on 3\/11\/2013 \u2013 Drafts dates each entry \u2013 I\u2019ve got 12,842 words of ideas.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t say that they\u2019re good. For instance, I\u2019ve just found from 09:28 on 19\/6\/2014 the words: \u201cWrite about a tree\u201d.<\/p>\n But then there\u2019s this from 18:45:27 on 5\/7\/14: \u201cSteve hates time travel. He had a bad experience when he was a kid and an old man.\u201d I think that led to a short story two years later. Certainly it was part of the thinking so I like that. <\/p>\n Or I like this more than I should. At 01:53:41 (why are some times to the millisecond and others aren\u2019t?) on 25\/9\/14 I just wrote: \u201cYou don\u2019t know whether you fancy her or want to be her.\u201d And now look at this script extract from two months ago:<\/p>\n INT. LONDON RESTAURANT BAR \u2013 EVENING Susan Hare is in an evening dress and, God, she looks superb. You’re not sure if you fancy her or want to be her. You are sure that this is someone rich, talented and leading a charmed life. You’d be wrong, but you’d be sure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s from a script called Vows which has been doing remarkably well for me this year. Without looking in my Story Ideas notes, without remembering that I\u2019d had this thought before, writing it down in Drafts and sending to Evernote lodged it in my head enough to come out three years later when I needed it.<\/p>\n So somewhere around 2020, then, I expect to be writing a script or an article about how words change and events get forgotten. I expect to be writing a story in which some student in the future pays little attention to a lecture on the Troubles in Northern Ireland and thinks it\u2019s about music from the era.<\/p>\n Thank you for letting me find a place to use one of the more silly ideas I\u2019ve got recorded in this thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been planning out a workshop I\u2019m due to run in February about software for writers. Easy, I thought: Scrivener, … Continue reading
\nThe group is waiting in a bar. There are large TV screens tuned to sports and news channels.<\/p>\n