Words on a page

As a freelancer, something that’s probably more than just slightly important to you is getting paid. Most of us enjoy what we do, but job satisfaction doesn’t pay the bills or fund our vices. Obviously, to get paid we need to invoice clients.

To be honest, I do quite a bit of my work in the cloud. For the longest time that included using a Web-based, for-pay invoicing application called Blinksale.

Even though I like using Web-based tools, I also prefer to have as much of our data in my hands. On top of that, I’m an enthusiastic user (and promoter) of free and Open Source software (FOSS). It not only cuts my costs, but also gives me more flexibility.

While there’s nothing wrong with Blinksale, I needed a change. A few months ago, I looked around for a FOSS invoicing solution. I dug up a few, and decided to go with one called BambooInvoice.

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Last week, I spoke at the Free Software Open Source Symposium (FSOSS) at Seneca College here in Toronto. It was an interesting experience, partly because this was the first Open Source event I’ve been to in quite a while, and the first time I’ve spoken to an audience of people involved in Open Source development and tech writing.

On top of that, my presentation was one of three back-to-back sessions on writing. Both were very interesting, but the one that came after mine was more so. Why? It was about making a living writing about Open Source.

Here’s a quick report.

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As you’ve probably read in this space, I enjoy using full-screen editors. They enable me to write without any distractions — I can focus on writing and not have my attention pulled away by email, RSS feeds, or anything else.

My favourite application in this category is JDarkRoom. But I’ve found a new one that’s giving JDarkRoom a run for its money: TextRoom.

Standing apart from the rest

Admittedly, TextRoom is like just about every other full-screen, minimalist editor out there. It has most of the same features — the ability to change fonts, configurable interface, autosave. all of that. I guess in this category of software, there’s little new that you can do (although, I wouldn’t mind being proved wrong1).

But TextRoom has one ability that sets it apart from other editors: TextRoom can keep you on your toes and remind you of your deadlines.

How? In the Options window (press Ctrl+P to open it), click the Targets tab. There, you can do the following:

• Set a target word count for a writing session. Say you decide that you need to write 500 words before going off to do something. Set that goal, and TextRoom will display the goal and the number of words that you need to reach that goal in the bottom left of the screen.
• Set a deadline for a particular piece of work. TextRoom will remind you about the deadline.

There’s also a timed writing feature that I haven’t figured out yet.

The drawbacks? No spelling checker (although TextRoom does maintain a running word count), and you have to save your writing as a text file. There’s an installation program for Windows users, but Linux users need to compile TextRoom. No Mac version is available yet.

In the past, I’ve blogged about writing and publishing with LyX (here and here, to be exact). While it’s definitely not for everyone, LyX can be a powerful tool for writing and publishing theses, reports, and books. I’ve used it to write a number of professional reports which have pleased my clients.

The one thing that I have yet to do is author and publish a book using LyX. I’ve had a couple in the planning stages for a while, and everything except the content is ready to go in LyX. After reading this article, I might just have to get going!

The article looks at using LyX to create a book that will be published and sold on Lulu.com. I don’t see why the information in the article can’t be adapted for use with other services, like CafePress.com, or for publishing a work that you’ll sell on your Web site.

Do you really need expensive commercial software to publish books? According to this article at Newsforge.com, the answer is no.