What Program and/or Tool(s) Do You Use for Writing?
Focus and Organization
I’m no spring chicken.
I’ve been over the hill and back a few times now, which means we didn’t have computers when I was a little bitty child. They didn’t really become a thing until I was a bit older and even then, at my secretarial job while I was in college, I still had a big fat IBM Selectric sitting next to me on my desk. Whiteout, anyone?
I’ve been in love with writing since I was young and always swore the only way I could write and be creative was to write in longhand first. I had notebooks and lined yellow pads stolen from work everywhere.
And, indeed, I would handwrite everything before attempting to type anything out on the cheap electric typewriter I had at home.
Preference for handwriting or not, back in the olden days my typewriter made me feel like a real writer. I imagined myself writing while overlooking a salty ocean one day not unlike Sylvia Plath wrote about this kind of life in her journals. Today everything is done on my trusty Mac. It helps that I type close to 100 WPM and it’s far easier to let my fingers fly and do their dance than with a pen. Not that pen and notebook don’t bring about a particularly unique flavor—I’ll often doodle and write poetry in my journals or sketch out character ideas.
I’m the kind of person who—how shall I put this—lacks focus and any kind of organizational skills. I love reading about the different tools other writers use and I have my own, which are great when I stick to them.
Personally, I’m a Scrivener fan. I like the way it sets everything up in the perfect format and seeing the chapters lined up can really be eye-opening. I’ve been working on a book of essays and the biggest challenge for me is finding a flow between the chapters. I’m not sure I’d as easily be able to see the clunkiness of what I’m working with at the moment if it wasn’t for Scrivener.
I’ve tried working in Word but I’m the queen of not saving shit and losing huge chunks of work that I spent time on. Google Docs in that instance is much better for me and easy to use—but I still prefer the organizational tools Scrivener provides.
Notion is another program I’ve tried. I know a lot of people who use it and love it—for me, it is better with content planning than as a writing program. It could be that I didn’t give it the chance it needed or took the time to learn all of the features, but it could also be that I’m just stuck with the thing I like.
It works for me.
What tools do you use and why? Let’s discuss!