I’ve done a lot of talking about my personal writing journey, what kind of writer I am, and the goals that I tend to focus on, but I haven’t talked about the software I use very much at all. Software, for many, is a personal journey in and of itself. I know it was for me. It wasn’t that long ago that the sum of most writing took place on a typewriter and before that just pen and paper. Writing has always been a three-way marriage between creativity, language, and technology.

Whether we were using crude paints with our fingers against cave walls or slapping keys on a computer, the latest technology of the time has always had a key role to play in the writing process. In modern times, that role is invisible. We can look at a movie and tell what is and isn’t CGI—even when we can’t, there are experts who can—but you can’t pick a book off the shelf and know how it was written and what role technology played in its creation. The only way we know is if an author talks about it. So here I go, talking about it.

For most of my writing in the last decade, I have used Scrivener. If you have spent any time on the Internet as a writer, aspiring or otherwise, then you have heard of it. Let me be honest, it’s a flawed beast, but it might be the best one. It allows you to work out of hundreds of documents at a time and organize those documents in some meaningful fashion. It’s adaptable enough that you can use it in ways that it wasn’t intended for. I may go into specifics of my Scrivener setup at some point as well, but let’s skip that for now.

I have tried a lot of things. I have tried all the note-taking apps like OneNote, Google Keep, Evernote, etc. I have worked in Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and Note Pad. And I have tried at least a half-dozen others that were aimed at novel writers. Many of those novel word processors had great features, even features that I was interested in, but it was often a missing feature that I had grown accustomed to from Scrivener or a price tag that made me turn the other way. I am not a fan of paying a monthly subscription for a word processor.

The big downside here is that Scrivener is not web-based, has no cloud support, and generally gets funky if you try to swap between machines. Despite this, Scrivener is a stable platform even when you are messing with it in ways that they say you shouldn’t (using Google Drive to store project files and accessing from different machines). It’s something I have learned to live with, and in a pinch, I will use OneNote or Google Docs to hold my ideas until I can get them to Scrivener. I also use OneNote for blog writing mostly just so I can sketch stuff out on my phone and have it handy when I need it.

Within Scrivener, I have a bit of everything. I have short stories, concepts, ideas, etc. When it comes to a novel project, my process varies quite a bit from project to project, but this current fantasy monster I am working on has docs for most cities, all characters, all creatures, concepts, languages, cultures, history, and more. If there is some aspect of my world that I have to reference, then I ensure I can easily reference it.

I also love data. I may have mentioned it before, but English and writing was never my strong suit. Math and numbers were. Both writing and math have their mysteries and legends, and though numbers came easy, it was writing that always intrigued me.

Though I may be a writer, I’m still obsessed with data and numbers. That’s why I keep Google Sheets handy when I am writing. I used to use it to track a lot of stuff like daily word count, total project length by day, etc. Now I keep track of word count on the project and individual chapters along with a rough estimate on how far along each chapter or section is just to get any idea of where my draft is in terms of completion. I also use it to track what I am reading, what I want to be reading, and more.

For most of my projects, I never had a need for things like maps, but for my current project, it was growing to be too much to keep in my head and needed to be something more than what I could scrawl with my hand. I tried a few things and turned to Inkarnate. I won’t link it directly, but it is a pretty neat tool for map generation. Saving can be slow and fickle and it is a monthly fee service (just $5 if memory serves) so I don’t want to just recommend it. You can download your map even if you are in non-payment, you just can’t edit. If you are in a similar pinch, look for some options, and if you exhaust those, Inkarnate may not be a bad way to go. If you have more map-making needs than just a novel project or two, then perhaps you will get your money’s worth.

I have dabbled with using more software. I’ve built my own custom word count/WPM JavaScript app. I’ve tried keeping some parts of my writing process in one spot and others in another, but I find I work better the fewer apps I need. Even with Inkarnate, once I update the map I download and keep a copy in Scrivener itself for reference.

By the way, it’s not all software. Often when it comes to a good proof on a first draft, I still prefer printing things out and working through it with a bright red pen and all the band handwriting that my fingertips can bring to bear, and for those random ideas in the middle of the night, nothing beats a little notebook on my nightstand and a pen at the ready.

My advice to you, if you feel like you don’t need something to be different. If you are writing everything just fine in Google Docs or whatever, don’t change. Don’t try something new. But if you feel like your software isn’t letting you organize your writing in the way that you want or that it impedes your process, then try stuff. Throw a search in Google, check out the deals at the end of a NaNoWriMo or just try Scrivener. There are so many options out there, I doubt everyone will find a perfect match, I never did, but you can get close.

Quote of the Moment:

“The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it’s right. If it disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.”

― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Current Reads:

Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak
Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson