I tend to use word processing systems, whether in email or an actual file, because I'm lazy and don't want to fix my own typos.
Even the Spellingcheck in GDocs catches "teh" and "hre" for me, and I like having a wordcount function, though I've found that they vary pretty widely.
But I carry a notebook with me all the time. Most of what I write in it is, well, notes to myself - where I parked the car at the airport, an idea for a gift for my sister-in-law, costume sketches and the like -- for when I'm computer-less, but sometimes those notes are bits of dialgue that i want to use or a fix for a scene that I think of in the car and don't want to lose. So I don't usually compose on paper, but I do use hard copy quite often for both creation and revision.
Most of my betas and most of the writers I beta for now use GoogleDocuments. It's been a while since I shared something in hard copy. A friend preferred IM/chat prgrams for beta-ing but I found the technology frustrating.
For co-writing, other than the memory limits that GDocs has, the only problem we've had is when it's down. Smaller stories, single scenes and such, we can toss back and forth in email, but we tend to create a file in GDocs when an idea goes from "Wouldn't it be funny if..." to "Are we really writing this?" mostly as a way of consolidating the bits and pieces we'd been discussing in four different email threads and two LJ comment threads and the idea she had in the shower that morning and putting them all in one place.
Storage: I only wish I was so organized. I started out saving stuff on my hard drive, and lost that computer to the Blaster virus some years ago. I kept it in email, and that server had a hiccup. Most of it's up on Skyehawke or lj and eventually, I'll transfer it to AO3 as well, and there's bits floating out of my reach, including comment-fic and such.
Yup, my wordcount function in GDocs didn't match AO3's (That's what I get for trying to be "clever" once and tell a story set in 1961 in 1,961 words exactly!)
For co-writing, other than the memory limits that GDocs has, the only problem we've had is when it's down. Smaller stories, single scenes and such, we can toss back and forth in email, but we tend to create a file in GDocs when an idea goes from "Wouldn't it be funny if..." to "Are we really writing this?" mostly as a way of consolidating the bits and pieces we'd been discussing in four different email threads and two LJ comment threads and the idea she had in the shower that morning and putting them all in one place.
I was writing to meet a challenge and spent twice as long editing down a story to slide under the maximum word count as I had writing out the original idea.
Finally got it, with an extra word to spare, cut-and-pasted it, and the word count in that program said it was one word over the limit.
I've handwaved word counts ever since. I like my adjectives and I don't like counting to one hundred and I figure to hell with it. Call me a wild and willful woman.
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51stcenturyfox) wrote2010-01-12 10:28 am
no subject
I tend to use word processing systems, whether in email or an actual file, because I'm lazy and don't want to fix my own typos.
Even the Spellingcheck in GDocs catches "teh" and "hre" for me, and I like having a wordcount function, though I've found that they vary pretty widely.
But I carry a notebook with me all the time. Most of what I write in it is, well, notes to myself - where I parked the car at the airport, an idea for a gift for my sister-in-law, costume sketches and the like -- for when I'm computer-less, but sometimes those notes are bits of dialgue that i want to use or a fix for a scene that I think of in the car and don't want to lose. So I don't usually compose on paper, but I do use hard copy quite often for both creation and revision.
Most of my betas and most of the writers I beta for now use GoogleDocuments. It's been a while since I shared something in hard copy. A friend preferred IM/chat prgrams for beta-ing but I found the technology frustrating.
For co-writing, other than the memory limits that GDocs has, the only problem we've had is when it's down. Smaller stories, single scenes and such, we can toss back and forth in email, but we tend to create a file in GDocs when an idea goes from "Wouldn't it be funny if..." to "Are we really writing this?" mostly as a way of consolidating the bits and pieces we'd been discussing in four different email threads and two LJ comment threads and the idea she had in the shower that morning and putting them all in one place.
Storage: I only wish I was so organized. I started out saving stuff on my hard drive, and lost that computer to the Blaster virus some years ago. I kept it in email, and that server had a hiccup. Most of it's up on Skyehawke or lj and eventually, I'll transfer it to AO3 as well, and there's bits floating out of my reach, including comment-fic and such.
Heh, way more than you wanted, eh?
no subject
For co-writing, other than the memory limits that GDocs has, the only problem we've had is when it's down. Smaller stories, single scenes and such, we can toss back and forth in email, but we tend to create a file in GDocs when an idea goes from "Wouldn't it be funny if..." to "Are we really writing this?" mostly as a way of consolidating the bits and pieces we'd been discussing in four different email threads and two LJ comment threads and the idea she had in the shower that morning and putting them all in one place.
Same. I kind of hate staring at an empty GDoc!
word count
Finally got it, with an extra word to spare, cut-and-pasted it, and the word count in that program said it was one word over the limit.
I've handwaved word counts ever since. I like my adjectives and I don't like counting to one hundred and I figure to hell with it. Call me a wild and willful woman.