Every author has their favourite tools, their own writing routine, and I’m no different. But I’ve spent years tweaking my writing methodology. Back in the mid-2000s, I used to write on the train from Reading to London on a Philips Velo, which was cutting edge technology at the time. I used to try to write on the tube, but as a rather shy and self-conscious left-hander I chose to write in mirror writing. It was perfectly readable to me, though no one could read it over my shoulder. I have also experimented with dictation, though found it hard to keep focus and it seemed to radically change the tone of my writing. And, of course, I’ve used the obvious tool: my computer.
I have now, however, settled on a fairly simple set of tools that get me from inception to publication. Here are the three most important tools that I just can’t live without.
Smart Pen
I was given my Livescribe Echo smart pen about three years ago as a Christmas present from my husband, and it rapidly became a tool that I couldn't work without. Livescribe pens, when used in conjunction with special dotted paper, record what you write and can even record audio whilst you’re writing, say if you’re taking meeting notes. You then upload your notes and audio to your computer, and can buy extra software, MyScript, to turn your handwriting into editable text. You do need to have fairly neat handwriting for that to work, however — MyScript chokes on my husband’s hieroglyphic handwriting, turning into indecipherable word salad.
I write all my story ideas, character development, and offline research notes in Livescribe notebooks. Then, when I’m ready to start drafting, I write longhand in a dedicated notebook. Writing longhand is slow, but I have found that slow is better for me. When typing, my fingers tend to run away with me, leading me down unhelpful cul-de-sacs. Writing longhand is more deliberative and means that, even if my prose needs some serious editing, the structure tends to be in better shape.
There are drawbacks to using Livescribe, though. Firstly, you are tied into using their stationery, and their range is rather limited and can be expensive. Secondly, the Echo pens are susceptible to screen failure, and if your pen is out of their two year warranty then it’s unclear what the remedy is other than ‘buy a new pen’. It’s always disappointing when technology that you think should last you a while begins to conk out not long after the warranty ends. I’m not sure that I will buy a full-price replacement to replace the Echo, because it's not clear from the support forum responses that the problem has been solved.
There are other options, however. The IRISnotes Digital Pen uses a sensor, which you position at the top of the page you’re writing on, to record your writing. You can use any paper, which is nice given I make my own notebooks, and the pen will send your notes to your PC, Mac, iPad or iPhone. It also has handwriting recognition so, again, you can convert your notes to editable text. The Staedtler Digital Pen is so similar to the IRISNotes pen that I suspect they’re the same. And LogiPen Notes works in the same way, with a sensor, but looks a bit cheaper than the others.
I’ll keep using my Echo until the bitter end, even if I need to use the volume adjustment beeps to tell if the pen’s actually turned on or not. But, at some point, I suspect a stash of Livescribe stationery is going to end up on eBay.
Scrivener
Once my first draft has been completed and put through handwriting recognition, it goes into Scrivener, the best writing app I have ever used. Available for Mac and PC, Scrivener is designed not just as a good word processing environment — I am, in fact, writing this post in Scrivener — it’s also a great tool for collecting and organising your research.
I tend to have a new Scrivener file for each writing project, with a folder for research, in which I’ll keep notes, ideas, character sketches, and explorations of my world. Some of those will be notes from my Livescribe notebooks, others will be written in Scrivener, and finally there are usually a few documents with content culled from the web.
I then have a draft folder, with each chapter in a separate document. If I need to re-order my chapters, that’s easily done by dragging and dropping. I can read the draft, which is a collection of these individual documents, either as if it were a single document or as though it were a corkboard with index cards pinned to it. Using the index card display, I can see the scene synopsis and can again re-order the chapters by dragging and dropping.
Scrivener is an incredibly powerful tool, and I can only touch on a fraction of its functionality here, but for me it is the only writing software I recommend.
Sigil
Once my book’s been polished to a high sheen in Scrivener, I can compile all the chapters into an ePub ebook. But if there is one area where I wish Scrivener was a bit better, it’s in the conversion to epub. You do get a decent looking ebook out, but under the hood it can be very messy indeed. In order to polish off any last raw edges, I use Sigil. It might feel a bit daunting to start with, but Sigil gives you both a WYSIWYG editor and the option to dig into the code of your ebook to see what’s going on.
You’ll need to know a bit of XML and CSS to really be able to get the best out of Sigil, but if you’re self-publishing, these are skills that you should develop anyway. You can, of course, outsource your ebook creation to someone else, but as Hachette’s George Walkley said at the Futurebook conference, what happens if you want to make a last minute correction?
Bonus tip: Sigil doesn’t output to Mobi, so I use Kindle Previewer, which will open an ePub file and then convert it to Mobi for you.
So, those are my key writing tools. What are yours?
