Monday, July 24, 2006
Writing while travelling
Recently, I returned from a three-week trip to China. While it was a vacation, I did take the opportunity to collect information for several articles. But I didn't bring my computer or my Alphasmart Dana with me. All my notes were jotted into my Moleskeine notebook.
But I was a bit paranoid about losing my notebook. To cover myself, I went digital. And I developed a workflow that will work for me in the future. The workflow moves from jotting down ideas and outlines, to creating a draft, to sending a query, to tracking that query. Not only can you implement this workflow from anywhere you have Internet access, the tools are free.
[Don't get me wrong -- I didn't spend hours each day in an Internet cafe. There was too much to see and do in China. But using online tools in the way that I describe in this posting doesn't have to take much time.]
Ideas and outlines went into my personal wiki at PBWiki.com. If you want to learn more about wikis, then read this article. I could have used Backpack, but PBWiki makes linking between article ideas and their outlines easier.
When it came time to write a draft (or just to start it), I used Writeboard. Writeboard is a tool that's designed to enable you to collaborate on a document, online. But you can use it as a simple word processor or text editor too. It's easy to use: just create the Writeboard and start typing. Best of all, Writeboard saves previous versions of a document -- you can got back and retrieve passages that you cut out. I could have done the same thing in PBWiki, but Writeboard makes it easier to later save a document as plain text or HTML, which I can then format in a word processor.
On the last day of my trip, I decided to dash off a few queries. For that, I used Gmail. There's no reason why you can't use any other Web-based email service, like Yahoo! or Hotmail. I just prefer Gmail. I logged the queries using Google Spreadsheets. I've got a copy of my submission/query tracker there, and can update it anytime and anywhere.
You're not stuck with the tools I use. You can, for example, substitute Backpack or Yahoo! Notepad for PBWiki. You can use another online word processor, like Writely or Zoho Writer, instead of WriteBoard. The choices that you have are many, and are growing.
Regardless of the tools that you use, you can write and even submit articles from anywhere. Even if you don't have access to your own computer. I'll be discussing this in a bit more detail in a later post.
But I was a bit paranoid about losing my notebook. To cover myself, I went digital. And I developed a workflow that will work for me in the future. The workflow moves from jotting down ideas and outlines, to creating a draft, to sending a query, to tracking that query. Not only can you implement this workflow from anywhere you have Internet access, the tools are free.
[Don't get me wrong -- I didn't spend hours each day in an Internet cafe. There was too much to see and do in China. But using online tools in the way that I describe in this posting doesn't have to take much time.]
Ideas and outlines went into my personal wiki at PBWiki.com. If you want to learn more about wikis, then read this article. I could have used Backpack, but PBWiki makes linking between article ideas and their outlines easier.
When it came time to write a draft (or just to start it), I used Writeboard. Writeboard is a tool that's designed to enable you to collaborate on a document, online. But you can use it as a simple word processor or text editor too. It's easy to use: just create the Writeboard and start typing. Best of all, Writeboard saves previous versions of a document -- you can got back and retrieve passages that you cut out. I could have done the same thing in PBWiki, but Writeboard makes it easier to later save a document as plain text or HTML, which I can then format in a word processor.
On the last day of my trip, I decided to dash off a few queries. For that, I used Gmail. There's no reason why you can't use any other Web-based email service, like Yahoo! or Hotmail. I just prefer Gmail. I logged the queries using Google Spreadsheets. I've got a copy of my submission/query tracker there, and can update it anytime and anywhere.
You're not stuck with the tools I use. You can, for example, substitute Backpack or Yahoo! Notepad for PBWiki. You can use another online word processor, like Writely or Zoho Writer, instead of WriteBoard. The choices that you have are many, and are growing.
Regardless of the tools that you use, you can write and even submit articles from anywhere. Even if you don't have access to your own computer. I'll be discussing this in a bit more detail in a later post.
