Are you a writer? So am I. And I want to ask you questions. I want to get down to brass tacks, or nuts and bolts or something with you. I have been looking everywhere, trying to learn the secrets of sanity. I want to know how you write.
I’m not talking about inspiration here. I don’t want to know – at least not today – how you finally get those elusive drops of blood to spring forth from your indehiscent brow. I need to know how you get your ideas into the world on any given day, and keep them from dissolving into the dew.
Here are my questions. If you will answer them for me, I will reciprocate in an impending post.
- What software do you use?
- When you are creating a longer piece – such as a novel – which has parts or sections such as chapters, do you keep the parts in separate software files or keep them together in one?
- If you keep them separate, do you at some point merge them into a single document, prior to printing?
- Do you work on one computer or with more than one, such as a desktop and a laptop?
- If you use two or more, how do you keep your working files synchronized and prevent them from getting all confused?
- Where do you like to work? Describe your favorite and least favorite places to write, and circumstances such as music playing, noisy coffeehouse, library, freeway underpass, etc.
- Do you work best at certain times of day or under certain circumstances? Does this vary; and if so, why?
- Do you have to enforce your need for solitude or quiet on family, friends, or neighbors? If so, how? And how do they react? Are you successful?
- When you are away from your writing place/s, what steps if any do you take to be prepared if inspiration strikes or something notable appears? For example, do you carry a notebook?
- Please share any thoughts or tips on organization or productive work habits that come to mind.
Please enter your responses in Comments in any format that suits you. Number them if it pleases you. Or respond by e-mail. Let me know if I can quote you on this blog, and if you prefer to be quoted anonymously. Thank you!
Metaphor 
Billie, thank you very much. I’m working on a post about how I do it too.
Kyle – guilty as charged! I read this and didn’t have time at that moment to post, meant to come back, did come back, but by then there was a newer post, etc. etc.
I’m glad you offered another chance. 🙂
I write on a laptop, which is no longer truly portable b/c its battery lasts about 5 minutes. I started out writing in a funky coffee house, and I wrote my first novel there every Thursday night from 6-10 p.m. for about a year.
When it came time to revise, the din of voices got in the way, and I moved to my therapy office. Initially it was very hard to write there – too much “energy” – but for revision it worked and I got over the hump of thinking it wouldn’t.
I revised the first novel and wrote the second one and some of the third one there.
When we moved, I switched offices, and never really clicked writing-wise with the new office. I also finally got a little writing garret at home, so now this is where I work, on the same laptop, sitting in an Ekorne chair with my feet up on an ottoman. I suspect I’m not doing my forearms any good, and am thinking that my next computer might be a desktop with ergonomic keyboard and a really good chair. Or a bigger laptop I can hook up to an ergonomic keyboard and use at the desk.
I open a file with each new novel and the whole novel is right there in that one file. I back it up on an external hard drive. If I am going to do something truly major in a revision, I “save as” and start a new file labeled so I can keep straight what I’ve done. This comes in handy when changing tenses in the whole thing, trying the novel out in a new POV, etc.
I used to write in the evenings, now I mostly write in the mornings and in bursts through the day.
I always have a legal pad and pen by my side b/c if I get stuck, the best way to get rolling again is to write by hand for a bit.
I carry a Moleskine with me everywhere for notes on books. That way everything gets written down in one place and I can find things pretty easily when I need to remember what that great line was, or the paragraph that “came to me” in the car on the way to work.
I print out pages a lot when editing – and whenever I go on a writing retreat I print out the whole thing and end up with the desk like this: hard copy pages on my left, laptop front and center, legal pad and pen on the right, and current Moleskine somewhere in easy reach.
The best edit I ever did though was on a retreat to a mountain inn where the room had no desk – the bed faced a huge picture window that hung off the side of the mountain and overlooked a forested valley and range of mountains. I spread everything out as stated above on the bed, and edited the whole novel from start to finish sitting right there, pretty much straight through the weekend.
It was incredible.
Which is reminding me that I need that kind of whole weekend immersion when working, and it’s time for me to have one now – usually I go away like that for a 4-5-day stretch once/season. My last one was in January, so … it’s time.
Hope this is what you were looking for! You’re right – it was fun to write!
Thank you, Bill!
In response to your rant about no intercourse of late, I will answer your questions: 1) I write with whatever I have or had and save as text files. 2) Separate folders for each book and separate chapters in the folders. 3) No. 4) More than one. 5) I save on one computer; and if I want to work on a part of it, I e-mail that part to me and pick it up with the other computer and e-mail it back when I’m done. 6) In bed very late at night is the place — I write notes everywhere else. 7) See #6. 8) See #6 — nobody bothers me. 9) I carry business cards, which are 3×5 cards and are very handy. 10) I’m not organized and have terrible work habits.