Hi folks,
I've read a few of the threads here lately and I'm beginning to realise that there are many different tools and methodologies writers here use. For example, Steve Eley
showed us a bit of his gear, and Bold Deceiver's
new toy is just, well, lovely (for the record, I happen to be responsible for the running of a Salvation Army Thrift Shop!).
Anyway, I'm wondering what other people use and how they use it. I've only just started with writing fiction --- I've completed one story (4500 words, and theoretically accepted for publication --- long story) and one or two in various stages of development. I'm hoping that seeing how other people work might inspire me to better things. Besides, it gives me something to do other than writing!
I currently do all my writing in Emacs (which I noticed that
Steve uses as well). Emacs has a lot of useful facilities, including the ability to narrow the view down to one particular section of text so that I'm not distracted by other stuff.
One of the other things Emacs does is run in both a standard GUI and on a text console (I run GNU/Linux, although Emacs also runs on Windows). This is probably the most important thing I can do. My desktop machine is fully tricked out like anyone's, and is far too full of games, browsers, email clients and the like to be conducive to writing. So I have a laptop (a Toshiba Tecra 510CDT --- you think Bold Deceiver's typewriter was old??) that only runs in text mode. I have a similar set up at work. This means that bludging takes more effort than it's worth. This is especially useful when I have papers due for my University course.
Another useful piece of software I use is Subversion. This is a version control system which is primarily used by software developers to track changes made to software. Subversion allows me to 'roll back' to an earlier version of the story if I decide I've gone down the wrong path. If I get really fancy I can have several versions of the story running concurrently, and even merge changes between them. It also keeps the story in sync between my various computers.
I'm not so sure going straight to the computer is that helpful, so I bought myself a notebook (paper, not laptop!) today so I can experiment with other ways of working. I'm even thinking about using the voice recorder on my mobile phone for when I get those fantastic phrases pop into my head while I'm driving.
So... how about everyone else?