I find that it entirely depends on my state of mind. Often, I have to start out writing by hand just to get a feel for the shape of the story. Once the words won't come quickly enough by hand, I know I'm ready to start typing. Sometimes I copy up what I've written out, sometimes I scrap it and start over. Usually, there has to be some part of the story in physical form in order for me to be able to really *see* it. Drabbles are almost always the result of handwriting and crossing out, so that I can see the whole thing at once. Seeing is really important to me - unless I know what shape and colour the story is, I can't do a damn thing. Often I have to write about 1000 words to chip away to the story I actually want to tell, and it's normally the fifth or so draft that turns out to be the one I need. Lengthy, but effective :S
I've worked with betas in google docs (literally - they've been editing while I'm writing. When there were three of them, I scrolled back up the page to find that they were happily arguing amonst themselves in 3 different colours o.O) but more often I like Word documents with lots of colours. One beta always works in pink, the other works in blue, and I use traffic light colours. It works for us!
My archiving sucks, and it's only when LJ crashes that I realise just how much of my stuff would be lost if the servers died forever. *clings to AO3 and Dreamwidth*
Yes! I kind of love the "edit stuff while I write more stuff" overlap in Google docs.
You know the Ctrl-M thing there? I just learned that... I'd been highlighting things when I beta. MUCH easier now to just use this function instead of the "highlight this, then pick a colour" thing. And handy when more than one person is in there fiddling around.
There are a few things I still have in Word but I've had a computer crash completely and lost some stories, so now I save them somewhere online, even just in email.
The overlap also means that they can argue directly with each other instead of my having to choose between them. It's a real benefit for indecisive writers ;)
...Ctrl-M? I'll have to experiment with that...
Despite being a librarian, I'm HORRIBLE at filing things on my own computer, which comes of writing on the home desktop, my laptop (with and without wifi) and the work desktop, as well as various notebooks. Everything gets really scattered - AO3 has been good for making me sort myself out, and rediscover stuff that I'd completely forgotten about. Y HALO THAR X-MEN FIC. There's even some original stuff lurking in there somewhere - it's like a lucky dip every time I try to organise it!
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51stcenturyfox) wrote2010-01-12 10:28 am
no subject
I've worked with betas in google docs (literally - they've been editing while I'm writing. When there were three of them, I scrolled back up the page to find that they were happily arguing amonst themselves in 3 different colours o.O) but more often I like Word documents with lots of colours. One beta always works in pink, the other works in blue, and I use traffic light colours. It works for us!
My archiving sucks, and it's only when LJ crashes that I realise just how much of my stuff would be lost if the servers died forever. *clings to AO3 and Dreamwidth*
no subject
You know the Ctrl-M thing there? I just learned that... I'd been highlighting things when I beta. MUCH easier now to just use this function instead of the "highlight this, then pick a colour" thing. And handy when more than one person is in there fiddling around.
There are a few things I still have in Word but I've had a computer crash completely and lost some stories, so now I save them somewhere online, even just in email.
no subject
...Ctrl-M? I'll have to experiment with that...
Despite being a librarian, I'm HORRIBLE at filing things on my own computer, which comes of writing on the home desktop, my laptop (with and without wifi) and the work desktop, as well as various notebooks. Everything gets really scattered - AO3 has been good for making me sort myself out, and rediscover stuff that I'd completely forgotten about. Y HALO THAR X-MEN FIC. There's even some original stuff lurking in there somewhere - it's like a lucky dip every time I try to organise it!
no subject
I sort of have a lot of images, though. In case I ever figure out how to photoshop things better. :D