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Show me a screenshot of your writing/editing environment!

2201 Views 37 Replies 21 Participants Last post by  Carry Lada
What do you use for writing, KindleBoards? Word? Libreoffice? Google Docs? Napkins? A nearby wall and a can of spray paint? I'd like to know!

Take a screencap of what you're working on (or something you've already released), and let's see what everyone's setup is like! (be warned; screencaps will be of stories that might contain naughty words) I'll go first. :)

This is Gedit, running on Xubuntu 12.04, full-screen with the "Cobalt" color scheme (and this is what it looks like when it's not in full-screen mode). No distractions, no buttons to fiddle with, not even italics support. I write in Markdown, which is a fancy way of saying that I use underscores to denote italics and then I run it through a little tool that turns those underscores into proper HTML opening and closing tags.

Why do it this way? Because this way I can write on anything - my writing folder is synced to Dropbox, and just about every computer or phone in the whole world can handle plain-text files. I can pull out my phone and do some writing wherever I go. :)

What do you write in, and why?
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I write in google drive spreadsheets (because they're scripts). I can't show a screenshot because I'm sure my boss wouldn't like it, but it's your basic spreadsheet with character names and descriptions in one column, dialogue in another, and programming in the third and fourth columns. When I first started writing this way, I found it realllly hard to read because you have to follow multiple columns at once, but I've grown used to it. It's also available on any computer connected to the internet, which is a bonus.
◄ Jess ► said:
I write in google drive spreadsheets (because they're scripts). I can't show a screenshot because I'm sure my boss wouldn't like it, but it's your basic spreadsheet with character names and descriptions in one column, dialogue in another, and programming in the third and fourth columns. When I first started writing this way, I found it realllly hard to read because you have to follow multiple columns at once, but I've grown used to it. It's also available on any computer connected to the internet, which is a bonus.
Wow, that's strange and neat! Are you writing for a game or something?
FeatherWatt said:
Wow, that's strange and neat! Are you writing for a game or something?
Yup. Story-based educational stuff. :)
◄ Jess ► said:
Yup. Story-based educational stuff. :)
Do you know about the Games for Change folks? Might be right up your alley.
I haven't heard of it before, but I'm looking at their website now. Really cool stuff! I think I'll have to forward this along to my boss too. :)
About 90% of my WiP has been written on my phone.
OpenOffice under Windows, because I'm a luddite.

My writing "environment" also includes copious amounts of handwritten notes... and random other crap. Yes, that's a fountain pen. And a rotary phone. Luddite, remember?

(And before someone asks, it's not usually quite that messy. I had to create some, uh, artful clutter to conceal a bunch of stuff from a project I'm working on under an NDA. Well, it was that or spend ten minutes with "gaussian blur", I guess...)
Just plain Word.  Gave Scrivener a try, but I'd rather be writing than learning how to use Scrivener.  Now that I have a Macbook, I may give it another shot.
Wow, that's super wide!

Also, yay happy messydesk. Oh man now I've gotta show you mine. That's yours, on the screen. You'll see microcontrollers, e-cigarette paraphernalia, and the guts of an Atari 7800 in there. Also that weird-looking thing directly behind the laptop is a stand that rotates, so I can use my laptop as a portrait monitor, which is lovely for writing. :)
Daedalus app on the iPad using the Apple Wireless keyboard and usually the Origami Workstation. When I go to the final editing and then publishing stages I use Scrivener on my Mac Mini. I use the apps as they appear so nothing special to look at really if you ever seen them.

I write short stories and plot outlines using manual typewriters on my 1940's desk that I think was created to drop out of bombers onto Nazi installations. Thing is heavy. They don't make them like that anymore. Solid, all kinds of neat features.

Manual typewriters I most often use, won't list all ten, are my 1929 Royal Portable, '55 Hermes Rocket, '56 Olympia SM-3, and the 60's era Olympia SF.

The Olympia SM-3 is olive green and identical to the one embedded in the Tardis console deck for Series 5-7.

I need to take some snaps of the desk next time I'm in my office.
David Alastair Hayden said:
I need to take some snaps of the desk next time I'm in my office.
Yes. Yes you do. :eek:

(/wipes away drool)
And surrender the secrets to selling tens of copies of every book I publish?

NEVER! ;)
I've now moved over to Scrivener for first drafts.  I used to use Garamond in Word, now I'm rather attached to the default Courier in Scrivener.  It has that old-school typewriter feel to it (and yes, I'm old enough to have trained on an electric typewriter - and used my mum's old manual one at home.)
Flopstick said:
About 90% of my WiP has been written on my phone.
Cool! Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone? Stock keyboard or add-on?

I write in Jota+ Text Editor, using Smart Keyboard Pro on Android. Here's what it looks like! I use a darker color scheme here so that I can write in bed without disturbing my SO. :)
I use Parker fountain pens and Paperblanks journals,
which looks something like this:



(this is my latest story that I am working on)
but I do the editing in Word afterwards.
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FeatherWatt said:
Cool! Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone? Stock keyboard or add-on?

I write in Jota+ Text Editor, using Smart Keyboard Pro on Android. Here's what it looks like! I use a darker color scheme here so that I can write in bed without disturbing my SO. :)
Android (Google Nexus). I use MyDrive, but it's infuriating when you lose 3G and it just locks up. Need to find some typing software that will do the same thing, but allow you to work offline and synch at your leisure, rather than having to be permanently connected.
Lady TL Jennings said:
I use Parker fountain pens and Paperblanks journals,
I love writing with Parker fountain pens! :)

But I do all my writing these days at the computer using word; still prefer that fountain pen though, but I'd hate having to then type it all out.
FeatherWatt said:
You'll see microcontrollers, e-cigarette paraphernalia, and the guts of an Atari 7800 in there.
I spy, with my little eye, the unmistakeable form of an Arduino. :)

--George, who has two sitting on his keyboard, one a Nano...
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