Sunday, March 30, 2014

Time to go camping!

I'm still working on wrapping up the second novel in the Trickster universe and getting the third going. So to help with that, I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo. Which is intend to work in the same the same way That I did NaNoWriMo anyhow: set your own goal and it doesn't have to be a new project.

In related news, I have spent a frightening amount of time this week using Scapple to map out some family trees and the subplots and complications of book three.

I received an enthusiastic review and demo of A Novel Idea earlier today. While I'm not sure it does things I don't already do with WriteRoom1, I think I will give it a try because my Mom has been asking about more apps she could use on her phone for plotting and planning her book3.

Thinking about this reminds me that I need to migrate my PlainText app stuff over to PlainText 2 at some point... or, alternatively, look into a different iOS doc editor that synchs with Scrivener.4.




Footnotes:

1. Which is no longer available for new purchase on the iTunes store, alas2.

2. While there are lots of things I like about app stores and mobile computing on phones and iPads, one thing I don't like is that the current models don't allow app developers a revenue stream for updates. I love WriteRoom for iOS and for Mac since I first got them several years ago, and have recommended them to people looking for a good distraction-free writing solution that works across devices. But updating the software to keep up operating system upgrades takes effort, and developers find themselves in the very unpleasant position of either doing that work for free, or trying to convince loyal customers to pay the full price of a new app in order to upgrade. Which means that the small developers who create software that meets any sort of specialized need are constantly going out of business and customers having to find something new to do what they were already doing with a tool they liked perfectly well.

3. Mom was one of my writing buddies last year for NaNoWriMo, and wants to do it again this year.

4. Since the maker of WriteRoom and PlainText sold his iOS apps to another company, said company has come out with an updated version of one of those products, PlainText 2. The original PlainText only worked on iPad, while WriteRoom worked on iPad and iPhone. WriteRoom was meant as a distraction-free program, so it was stripped down to the bare essential features of a writing program, while PlainText could do a lot more. PlainText 2 does work on both the iPhone and the iPad, and seems to interact with my other programs as I like, which is good. Right now I'm using the free version to test it out5.

5. On the other hand, if I'm going to have to go through the process of switching to another app anyway, and if getting all the features I want on said apps will require me spending some money, I should look at more than one, which is why I'll probably also be playing with Textilus, which has been strongly recommended by a few friends.

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