I am one of those possibly odd individuals who enjoys the balance of a good pen, scribbling nonsense across a blank piece of paper. I have had many writing utensils over the years. Some of them lasted years, others barely made it weeks before the ink dried up, ran out, or just refused to mark its mark.
While I still have a backup to my backup writing utensils, I am going to be moving to a purely digital format for these new novels. I tried the paper approach for the first chapter, but I found the duplication and understanding my scrawlings to be a bit more challenging than I remember from my first novel. I also found that I was changing some of the story as I transcribed the written words to the digital version.
The editing is probably the most annoying part since I know that I will need to change some of the lines in the first few chapters to align with the middle and end. I am taking valuable time away from the story to change words that I know will be changed at least one more time.
Since I am a big tech-enthusiast, I have enough items to engage in writing at almost any time. I will be choosing my 12.9” iPad as my primary writing source. I am using the magic keyboard with the trackpad instead of just tapping on the screen. I have also chosen to use OneNote as my collection tool. I have a Section set up for each book and pages for each chapter. OneNote also allows me to add pages to outline the story, draw some maps or write character traits with the Apple Pencil.
I know, there are better tools to do this. Ulysses, Scrivener, and even Microsoft Word or Apple’s Pages may offer better ways to organize things. However, I will eventually move each series into its own Notebook in OneNote, separate the books into Sections, and use the Pages for chapters. They are backed up to the cloud and appear on each of my devices. If I have an idea, I can take out my iPhone and jot down some thoughts and finish them later. I also have used OneNote for years in my day job, so there is no real learning curve.
What works now, may not work long-term. However, it is working with my writing flow, which is key to completing the story. For now, the pen remains in my pocket and is required only for signing checks, contracts, and autographs…all of which don’t seem to be in any demand these days.