Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Technology of Being a Writer

Editing on Werewolf Puppy is going well, thanks to my Nook Color tablet. I've been out and about so much lately that taking it with me on the go is the only way to be sure it gets worked on.

My tablet doesn't handle the entire manuscript well, so I've broken it into parts, and take the current part with me. Syncing the file through Dropbox means I always have the most current version with me, no matter if I'm on iPhone, tablet or netbook.

It's not a perfect solution. One of my beta readers practically wrote a book's worth of comments, and I need to go through those while I'm editing. Android isn't good at quickly switching between documents, so I've been viewing her comments on my iPhone while editing on the Nook. It also works best if I have a WiFi connection when I'm working, so I can sync updates right away, but that isn't a deal breaker, as long as I remember to update the version on my tablet before I leave the house. (Guess what I forgot to do yesterday? It should have been okay, but Cosi's WiFi was down. Oh well. I downloaded it to my phone and worked on it there.)

As far as editing on the small screen, it works for me. I'm actually finding it easier to focus and find things  to fix. I've become a big believer in viewing the manuscript in different media. What I miss in one, I'll catch in another. Like a typo yesterday that I missed in the printed version and on my netbook screen. I finally caught it on the iPhone.

The more I use technology for writing, the more I marvel that authors like Dickens managed to write and edit at all!

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