Where I've Been and Tools of the Trade

 I bet you thought I'd forgotten the blog again today. Or blown it off. It's been an intense two weeks. Let me show you what I've been up to (via some pixelated, crappy cell phone photos.)

I've been on the road for the past two weeks to Austin, Texas and back again to chase the eclipse. It was epic. The trip back was fraught with seriously rough weather, slow slogs in the freeways in rain so heavy you couldn't see, and constant emergency alerts firing on the cell phones for flood alerts and tornado warnings (three were verified on the ground.) We got to see an amazing celestial event and lived to tell the tale. 

As to what I use to write: Almost exclusively MS Word - it's familiar, it's versatile, and it's so easily converted to different file types. In the cracks of the caveat I supplied, I turn to simple little low-feature drafting tools from time to time like Omm Writer, Dark Room, or 4theWords. Those are for the days I want no distractions - they're about shutting out the rest of the computer screen and silencing notifications. They're for fast drafting when you don't want to let editor mind engage. There's rudimentary spell checking if there's anything at all.

They all import plain text into Word in a hyper-ugly font but that's fine because there's zilch formatting and Word happily goes about putting squiggly red and blue lines under everything I've mistyped or misspelled or grammatically hacked up. I like to think of Word as the program for the professional author and the other programs for the little kid artist who's trying out bits of story.

Back to the eclipse: We joined a Sky and Telescope Magazine group in the Austin area that had arranged hotel, meals, and the viewing location (private! with security!) We were in the company of 230 astronomy geeks, scientists, astrophysicists, and on eclipse day, one astronaut. We were surrounded by telescopes and massive cameras. All we had were viewing glasses and our cell phones (also with filters applied to them). We really lucked out with the weather.

If you're interested in catching your own eclipse experience, the next one is in Spain (through Sky and Telescope) in 2026. After that, Egypt in 2027, then Australia in 2028. Totality for this eclipse lasted just over 4 minutes. It was the shortest 4 minutes of my life.

What We Use to Write

Everyone is going to be bored with asking this question year after year because my answers haven't changed in a very long time. 

Writing Applications:

1. Word for Windows. I started with Word way back in the stone age. It's what we're required to use in my professional life. It's where I am most comfortable. Could I learn something else? Yes. Other authors extol the virtues of Scrivner, for example. But there's significant learning curve. Why spend time on that learning curve when I could be use the time and brain space for story? Not to mention that whenever I see authors compare notes about something like Scrivner, I invariably hear that plotters love it and pantsers hate it. Add into it that in the day job, it's literally my task to learn all the technical things. I don't have to fully learn a thing. I dip my toes in just enough to understand a technology, write about it, and then walk away to go learn about the next thing. I am not all interested in forcing myself to do that super deep dive into a new writing software. Word is simple. I don't have to think about what needs to happen to create a file I can submit to an editor or to format for self publishing. I've learned enough tricks in the application that I can make it do just about anything I need it to do. The only down side is the fact that grammar and spell checker in Words are idiots. They are tweaked for business speak. Not fiction. For that reason, neither can be trusted. I fully admit to being horrified at how many actual words aren't in the spell check dictionary. I wish I'd kept one example for you but I naturally can't think of one at the moment.

4theWords: 4theWords is an online gamification of word counts. It isn't a competition - you aren't competing with anyone else or even with yourself. You fight creatures who have been infected. If you defeat them, you've helped cure them. As you 'battle' creatures by attaining a word count in a set amount of time, you win in-game cash and prizes. This really is a case of the pen being mightier than the sword. There's a narrative story arc through the game that you can follow and a million special events that take place in the game through out the year. It works because there's a vibrant community in the game and with the developers. It's a fun, supportive, no pressure way to practice. To experiment. It's private enough that you can try out anything you'd like with writing and not have to worry about it being seen. If you like what you come up with, you can publish your work to the other writers on the site. Or take your work out into the broader world. I like it just as a means of experimentation and a bit of a sandbox where I can low-stakes mess around with words and bits of story and thought.

OmmWriter: OmmWriter is a lightweight environment meant to eliminate distraction and help silence the critic. The writing screen is tiny and sits within a full screen landscape. OmmWriter blocks all other alerts and notifications that run underneath. You won't hear your email pinging into your inbox, for example. You determine your preferred landscape, your preferred color scheme, and your preferred background sounds. Some are natural, some are musical. You can decide whether you want a key stroke sound or not. If you do, you pick from a variety of sounds. This is purely a drafting tool where the point is going fast without much thought into spelling, grammar, or structure. It's about getting words down and shutting down analysis until you copy and paste the words into something more formal. Like Word. Upside: Very inexpensive. Very zen. Does reduce distraction and helps induce flow. Downside: No formatting at all. When you pull your text over to Word, you will need to format the text into something decent.

Bonus tool
Tidal: Music streaming. I do not live by words alone. Music is vital. Especially whilst living in a house of four adults, three of whom are hard of hearing. I am not being facetious. Everyone in the house but me has or needs hearing aids. It is very loud where I live. A good play list and noise canceling headphones are a necessity.

Not Entirely Writing Apps

Writing apps. I've pared down my list this year. Maybe it's quarantine. I don't know. But the whole financial insecurity thing has made me conscious of what I pay for these days. So a bunch of random subscription services got the axe. The one I am using, though, is 4thWords this is a website where you create a character and progress through a story line by 'defeating' monsters who require that you write a certain number of words in a certain time frame - all of them reasonable. There are special events and different rewards to chase if those things light you up. Or you can sit back and pursue a project as you see fit. You have complete control over how you approach the environment. I happen to like the structure and the defined time frames. It gives me permission to brain dump. Most of that is garbage, but every once in awhile, I glean a really great story piece out of it.

Then there's Calm. Sure it's a meditation app. I don't actually use it for that. It also has a huge selection of sleep music to select from as well as ambient soundscapes. When Dad decides he's going to watch some craptastic war movie at incredible volume, I'm gonna need something keeping my blood pressure near normal. Calm and a pair of headphones do a good job of that.

For book formatting (for ebooks) I use Jutoh. I can produce any format I want, including .mobi. It does an amazing job of sorting through your manuscript and telling you if something won't pass muster for Amazon. I guess they have this weird fetish about Em and En dashes. Don't get me started. Regardless, Jutoh builds the encoding seamlessly. I won't lie. It does have a learning curve, but it's not steep and there are great tutorial videos to step you through everything. It didn't take me but a day to figure out how to get a book formatted, built, and saved out to every single file type I needed. Because I'm a dedicated Windows gal, I can't use Vellum, which I hear is THE software to use if you can. Sadly, it's only available for Mac. And based on what it costs to get a Mac, that's never going to happen.

What else is there? I'm always open to the new and cool.
PS: I still have unreasonable love for OmmWriter. But you knew that already.