All Things Writing

The Craft of Writing

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The Right Pen

Real Simple recently had a piece about pens.  I read it with interest because the right pen makes a world of difference to me.  The Real Simple article included pens in categories from gel to superfine. I agreed completely with their assessment of the Flair Felt Tip.

Still, my hands down favorite pen du jour is the Lamy Al-Star Rollerball.  I can get them locally or online, along with a lot of other amazing writer-stuff, at Fahrney’s Pens.  I can also get them online from Levenger.

The Lamy comes in plastic or metal.  The metal is a bit slicker in the hand but the plastic edges are a bit harder against the sides of the fingers.  I prefer the metal but a tiny bit.

The rollerball is flawless.  It’s not fine point but the resulting writing is not thick and it doesn’t leave blotches or drips.

The pen just feels good.

I also love the Sharpie-Fine Point pens.  The only drawback to them is that if one of your kids gets hold of it with a heavy hand, the point is ruined in a blink.  Ditto if it gets dropped on the floor without the cap on.

So – What about you?  If you were stranded on a desert island, which pen would you consider a must-have? Leave a comment and I’ll take the answers and create a poll 🙂


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“The Book” is Due Monday

No more time.  No more, one more thing.  No more, I just remembered.

My book is due to my editor on Monday.  With endnotes and bibliography.  With illustrations and diagrams.

It’s terrifying and exhilarating.  Terrifying because this was my first book and there are sooooooo many things I’d do differently that it leaves me hoping I got it all right this time.  Exhilarating because on Tuesday I will awaken to a schedule with no long-term project waiting for attention.

In the process of writing this book, I have fallen utterly in love with the history of technology as it played out at the start of the twentieth century.  Who could have known?  I certainly had no idea how thrilling it would be to discover words written so long ago and to find them full of emotion that I have the privilege of putting in context and bringing forward to a new generation.

As a mother I know I touch the future.  As a writer I choose to touch the past.  Introducing the latter to the former is the greatest reason for being a writer that I can articulate.

How about you?  What do you write?  Why do you write?


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Long Live Dropbox

I chose to freelance for three excellent reasons – my kids.  Freelancing gives me the flexibility I need to do “the juggle.”  With time, I’ve gotten reasonably proficient.  The only persistent problem has been having the files I need in the place I need them when I need them.

You know what I mean?  You have twenty unexpected minutes to get something done and you didn’t bring the laptop.  You brought the laptop but the file is on the desktop.  You have the working file on the jump drive but the other information you need to complete the project is back at home on the computer.

The best solution I’ve found is Dropbox.  It’s cross-platform and everything for a project lives in a folder in Dropbox.  It’s not the same as Documents to Go or similar programs that require me to sync before the files are available on the receiving computer.  My files reside in Dropbox in the “cloud” and I work on them while they stay in the cloud.  My Dropbox account is password protected.  I’m not sure I’d put something highly confidential up there but my latest essay and research notes are hardly state secrets.

For the first time in my freelance career, I can just get to work without a lot of prep work.  I also know I have one and only one version of a document – let’s not even go there!  You can use Dropbox on your iPad, too, if you’d like.  There’s really no reason you can’t have what you need where you need it when you need it.  All in all, it makes me more anxious to see what other cloud offerings are on the horizon. You do need internet access to get to your Dropbox files.  That’s not a problem where I live because there’s free wireless available pretty much wherever I am.  When there’s not, I use my iPhone as a hotspot.

There are obviously other ways to accomplish the goal of having what you need where you need it when you need it.  A jump drive is one and I have a jump drive.  It’s with me all the time.  Still, it just isn’t the same as using Dropbox.  Not a lot of help, I know, but it’s true.  I also have iDisk but I could never get it to work the way I needed.  Maybe it’s successor, iCloud, will be an improvement.  If it is, it could give Dropbox some serious competition.

Technology is finally at the point I need!  The productivity gains they promised in the 80’s have arrived and I could not be more thrilled.

Long Live Dropbox.  It’s added hours to my workweek without having to give up more sleep!


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Safari 5.1 Reading List

I’m a reluctant recruit to Apple. I went over to the dark side several years ago when Scrivener was only offered on that platform. The benefits from Scrivener alone were worth the trip. My gorgeous desktop iMac is another. And now, I’m delighted to have a third reason for being on a Mac.

The newest version of Safari is necessary for my WordPress blog and so, not very enthusiastically, I upgraded. To my delight, there is a new feature called the Reading List. This little puppy takes care of one of the most vexing problems of our time: How to keep track of things you want to read online but don’t have time to read immediately. Believe me, I’ve tried making a special Bookmark folder for those items, putting them on the Bookmark bar, etc. Ultimately I’ve wound up with a tremendous amount of clutter and many things unread that I really wanted to read.

With this new Reading List feature, I just add them the way I would add them to my Bookmarks Bar and voila! They’re there and I can view them all or just the ones that are unread. I can also clear the list when I want to.

I’m a firm believer that software/apps should make our lives easier rather than more encumbered.  For me, the Reading List is an instant hit!


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What’s All the Fuss About Scrivener?

Scrivener is a writing program for the Mac. I’ve just learned it is also in Beta for Windows, as well as a new OSX Lion version for Mac. Several writers I know have likened it to OneNote. I’ve used OneNote and for me the programs are entirely different. That may be a personal thing. By that I mean it may be the way I used OneNote and not anything about OneNote itself. With that in mind, I thought I’d tell you why Scrivener is the app that got me to switch – kicking and screaming and still reluctant after three years – to a Mac.

I am not by nature a tidy person. Give me a piece of paper today and unless I literally pin it to the wall, it will be lost in a whirl of papers by the end of the week. It’s frustrating and I have gone to great lengths and through remarkable feats of creativity to have this not be the case. But it is. Repeatedly.

I am not by nature a person who works in one place. I roam from room to room and work wherever it is quietest at any given time. I used to keep my papers in portable files and lug them around with me but that got old – fast – when I began work on a book with thousands of pages of documents and scores of very big and dusty books.

I am by nature a person who works on more than one thing, at differing stages for each project, at one time. I’ll be doing preliminary research for one. Tracking down primary sources for another. Completing a draft for another. You get the picture. And it may be a while until I cycle back through.

I am by nature a person who hates to lose things. When I can’t find something it doesn’t just ruin my day and waste by time, it produces a sort of blue melancholy that can best be described as a mini-pity-party. As anyone who writes is well aware, there is not time for pity parties, mini or otherwise, in our jammed days.

Being a person who hates to lose things, works wherever it is best at that moment, and yet is not tidy – and lacks sufficient wall space for all my important papers – it became necessary to find a solution. A foolproof solution.

Enter Scrivener.

I have it on my laptop and my desktop. I keep the working file up in the “cloud” and bring it down to where I am when I need it. Find a pdf of an out of print book on Google Books? Not a problem. I download it and bring it right into Scrivener. There’s a website I absolutely must remember for this project? Forget adding it to the 2,469 bookmarks I already have. I link it to Scrivener where the page is saved with the link intact so I can go to it from within Scrivener. Photos? Into Scrivener. Interview notes? Scrivener. Anything else? There’s a way to have it incorporated into Scrivener.

Once it’s in Scrivener, I can search and anything in any form that meets the criteria is identified. Nothing is ever lost. It’s all in one place. I can organize it different ways. I can make notes on it in different ways.

It’s the equivalent of one big wall.

And it’s tidy!


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We’ve Moved!

Come visit at our new location.  

It wasn’t an easy decision but in the long run, we’ll have greater flexibility.

And – Our new location address will better will serve our needs.

So.  Come check us out.

While you’re there, sign up so we can keep you posted!

Gina