Evernote: A great tool for writers

With my recent switch to Linux, which I talked about in my last post, I’ve been forced to search again for a lot of software that I was using on my old laptop. I had a number of different writing and note-making programs, none of which will work on Linux. In my quest for the ultimate note software however, I have rediscovered Evernote, which may not have a Linux desktop application but does work really nicely in Firefox.

I say rediscovered because I did briefly use an older version of Evernote on my old laptop. but ended up abandoning it in favour of other programs. Now however, Evernote has been upgraded and has become an even more useful tool for writers. Why is that? The best way to illustrate is probably using an example:

Say I come across a useful writing article or piece of research whilst browsing the internet. With the Evernote clipper extension installed in Firefox, I can click the handy button at the top of my screen (with a picture of an elephant on it, appropriately enough) and the text I’ve selected, or even the entire page, can be saved to Evernote.

In my case, I can view all my saved bits and pieces by logging into the Evernote website. Alternatively, Windows and Mac users can download a desktop client so that their notes are available offline. I think there’s even a mobile web service, but seeing as I’ve never even seen an iPhone or equivalent in the flesh (not many people in my circle of studenty friends can afford that sort of thing, not surprisingly), I can’t really comment on that.

Overall, it’s a simple idea, which Evernote executes nicely. It’s surprising how much time you can save with it, rather than copying and pasting internet research material into a word document or other program.

I’m aware that I’ve barely scratched the surface of what Evernote offers. It can hold pictures, handwritten notes and all sorts of other media, for example. The easiest way to find out more is, of course, to click that link higher up the page and watch some of the introductory videos that are on the Evernote site. If you’re a writer or just someone who finds the need to save disparate bits of information culled from all over the internet, I recommend taking a look.

Fatal System Error: I haz it

It’s been pretty quiet around the blog for the past week, for a very simple – but expensive – reason: last week, after suffering numerous crashes and error messages, my laptop finally died. I’m fairly certain some vital internal component has simply given up the ghost after two years of fairly intensive usage, but I’ll see if I can get it fixed over Xmas by a family member who knows far more about computers than I do.

Now, on to the expensive bit. With two essays to finish, I didn’t really have time to try to get my laptop fixed or save up for something fancy, so I’ve bought the absolute cheapest thing I could find that would open my essay files and allow me to browse the internet. Yes, it’s a netbook/notebook – the Acer Aspire One. It seems you have to pay an extra £70 or so for a Windows version so I’ve even got one running Linux.

First impressions? It’s light, the keyboard isn’t a great deal smaller than on my old laptop, it’s fast and runs Firefox and OpenOffice with ease. On the negative side, I’m still struggling a bit with Linux. Installing new programs seems to be pretty much impossible because I just don’t know what I’m doing and despite the reams of advice on internet forums, there are generally too many conflicting answers for me to get anything to work. That also means no more PC gaming for me, apart from the occasional hour of Guild Wars on my boyfriend’s computer, but with an X-Box 360 hopefully arriving at Christmas, I’m not too worried about that.

In terms of writing, I’m actually getting a lot done, partly because essays are out of the way and partly because this notebook has far fewer distractions than my laptop did. But an update on that is going to have to wait for another post.

An Uphill Struggle, with added Fingerless Gloves

This last week has seemed like an uphill struggle. I feel a little bit like I’m fighting a war – against my laptop. Yup, it’s the old computer troubles again. Actually, in the 2+ years I’ve owned it, my laptop hasn’t been much of a problem, but this past couple of weeks have seen random program crashes and the dreaded blue screen of death appearing. Fingers crossed, everything’s back under control now after a great deal of prodding and poking.

So what else have I been up to? Less work than I should have been doing, very little writing and lots of playing Guild Wars. I’m firmly back on a gaming spree at the moment, with GW and Descent 3. Which brings me to my moment of ’squee’ for the week:

This Xmas, I will finally, finally, be getting an X-Box 360. I’ve been wanting one for the last six months but, being a poor penniless student (I’m typing this wearing fingerless gloves because I don’t want to turn the heating on – it’s very Dickensian in our house) I haven’t been able to afford one. But hurrah! Come Christmas, I will finally have one, after which point I can bombard this blog with all sorts of games reviews and complaints of how much I suck at anything above ‘Very Easy’ difficulty level. Good times, no doubt.

And now, it’s back to huddling round a cup of tea for warmth, or something equally frugal and British. Good times? Maybe not.

What I’ve Been Up To This Week

As you may already know, I’m not keen on posting the minutiae of my life on the internet. What I do love to do, however, is spread some love for the great things I’ve been listening to, reading and generally enjoying. So, what’s in that list this week?

What I’ve been reading: At the start of the week, I finished Tithe by Holly Black, which was really enjoyable, even though it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I thought Kaye was a great character and the fey world she was drawn into was fascinating. Now though, I’m reading Night Life by Caitlin Kittredge, what I’d describe as an urban fantasy/supernatural mystery. Well, something like that anyway. The genres within fantasy have always been pretty silly. Anyway, I’ve gone from one feisty heroine to another this week. Luna, the star of Night Life, is a werewolf cop and one of the most engaging, genuinely kick-ass women I’ve come across in fiction in a long time. She don’t take shit from nobody. Ok, enough of the terrible attempt at smack-talking. Suffice to say, I’m really enjoying this book.

What I’ve been listening to: Nothing new, unfortunately. I’ve dug out my Opeth CDs though, after seeing them live last night. Once again, they confirmed why they’re pretty much my favourite band. Mmm, Opeth. Oh, and The Dead Robots’ Society writing podcast. If you’re into writing and podcasts but you haven’t listened to this one yet, you should really give it a go.

What I’ve been working on: I’ve finally started editing my latest novel, so most of my writing time has been spent sat in front of a massive stack of pages, scribbling all over them and generally ripping them apart. There’s something strangely therapeutic about putting a big line through half a page at a time and knowing that you’re never going to have to go back to it again. Other than that, I’ve been making slow progress on another new novel. (I should probably give these code names or something; just saying ‘new novel’ is getting confusing.) So, progress has been made, but it’s slow.

What I’ve been playing: Descent 3. Which is almost 10 years old now, but in terms of flying around and shooting things, it’s still a pretty good game and one which doesn’t make my laptop implode when I try to run it. Plus, I didn’t actually finish it the first time I played it, probably back when it first came out. Hopefully it’ll be second time lucky.

And I think that’s it for now. Word counts will be coming soon, as will some more meaningful posts about the editing process that I’m working my way through. For now though, good luck for the final week if you’re doing NaNoWriMo. And for everyone else… Er, happy last week of November!

Why I’m Not Doing NaNoWriMo

I mentioned in my last post that I’m not doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year but that it would take a separate post to explain why. So here goes.

I should start by saying that this isn’t going to be a post lashing out at the whole scheme for encouraging people to write crap for a month. I’m of the opinion that pretty much every new writer has to write crap for a while before they improve. Even some great writers probably write crap in their first drafts, before polishing the novel up for publication. The whole point of NaNoWriMo is to get people writing, to give people confidence and to instil a bit of discipline, all of which I think are great aims.

So why no NaNo-ing for me this year? Maybe I should go back a bit.

I first attempted NaNoWriMo in November of 2006. I heard about the whole thing at the last minute and, despite having nothing particular I wanted to write, I decided to give it a go. I failed miserably. I barely got 5000 words written. In my defence, it was my first year at uni, in a new city (the first time I’d lived in a city, in fact), at a time when I was just getting settled in and making new friends. To be honest though, I was pretty lazy and I gave up quicker than I should have done.

A year passed. A year in which I wrote virtually no fiction at all. I barely even read anything that wasn’t required for my course. This lack of writing – and lack of inspiration – left me feeling awful. Writing was the one thing I had remained passionate about my entire life and yet I hadn’t written anything for a year. It was time to take action.

My means of motivating myself to get my arse into my chair was NaNoWriMo. In 2007 I ‘won’: in other words, I wrote just over 50,000 words in 30 days. The novel I wrote was truly terrible and probably the worst thing I’d ever written. I’ve never been back to it and I don’t suppose I ever will. That’s not the point though. The most important thing was that I was writing again and I haven’t really stopped since.

Back to 2008. In the last year, I’ve written numerous bits and pieces and am just coming to the end of a novel that’s taken me less than six months to write. I have a handful of things on the go and I’m writing nearly every day. NaNoWriMo last year gave me all those things I outlined before: discipline, confidence in myself and knowledge that I really can do this. And, as those are all things I’ve managed to retain over the course of the year, I don’t feel the need to participate in NaNo again, at least not for a while. This year, I have a dissertation to write, a degree to finish and probably a job to find come next summer. Most importantly though, I’m still writing.

So, whilst I may not be NaNo-ing this year, I want to wish everyone who is the very best of luck. You’re more than halfway through now. Keep up the good work!

It’s Word Count Time (Again)

Sometimes I think I write just so that I can post one of these little word count thingies on my blog. Then, of course, I remember that there are a whole load of other reasons why I write, but I still love these things. I only wish I could find one that would sit on my desktop and remind me that I should be writing instead of faffing around on the internet. Anyway, progress for the last couple of weeks:

Yes, it’s slow progress but it’s progress nonetheless, for which I am grateful. I’m feeling so braindead at the moment that it’s a relief to get anything at all down. Which is partly why I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I think that’s going to need a post all to itself…

On a final note, this is indeed a new project that I haven’t mentioned before. I have a tendency to start new things all the time, but the fact that I’ve actually planned out the story from beginning to end this time gives me hope for this one.

The other novel I’ve been blogging about continues slowly, but the word count there has only gone up by 1500  or so words in the past couple of weeks, so it’s nothing to shout about. I will, however, very definitely be shouting when I finish the damn thing! More on that, hopefully, in a future post.

The Books That I Re-read

Throughout my life, I have been an avid reader and yet, when I think about it, I very rarely re-read books. There are, of course, the books I had to read for school. There are a few beginnings to series that I returned to before reading the second book. Other than that though, re-reading is something I rarely do, just as there aren’t many films that I feel compelled to watch more than a couple of times.

So which books do I frequently re-read? There are, I’ve realised, just three:

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‘Pride and Prejudice’ – Jane Austen

The book that spurred this blog post, as I finished reading it again just last night. It is, of course, a favourite with a great many people. Every time I read it, I’m reminded why. I love the characters, the dialogue, the wit, the misunderstandings and intrigue. I love Mr Darcy almost as much as I love some of my own characters and I probably love Elizabeth Bennett even more. It’s difficult for me to be anything but effusive about this book, despite the fact that romances as a genre doesn’t tempt me very often. Whenever I’m feeling upset or stressed or just in need of hope, this is the book I turn to (and I realise that makes it sound a bit like the Bible!).

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‘The Lord of the Rings’ – J.R.R. Tolkien

Again, a favourite with millions of people, The Lord of the Rings is the book that got me writing in the first place. I started reading it when I was six, inspired to do so by my mum’s beautiful 1970s special edition (far more attractive than any of the special editions available now, too, which makes me feel terrible when I remember standing on the box it came in when I was a kid). Strangely, the things I love about this book are pretty much the opposite of what I adore in Pride and Prejudice. Here, it’s the epic scale, the locations, the lyrical language and the way I can lose myself in Middle Earth so completely that I feel physical pain when I finish reading and remember that it doesn’t really exist. This is the book that I pick up when I know I have a week or so with not much on, so that I can really be absorbed by it.

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‘The Etched City’ – K.J. Bishop

This is by far the hardest of the three for me to describe. It’s what I call ‘literary fantasy’, set in an imagined tropical city and following the exploits of a doctor and a killer. It’s surreal, inventive, meandering whilst every little thing seems connected and full of symbolism that I’m still not sure I understand. The characters and setting have inspired much in my own writing, even more so than The Lord of the Rings and it’s a book I return to whenever I want to remind myself of what I’m striving towards. If there’s one book I wish I’d written, it’s The Etched City and it’s the one I recommend whenever I have the opportunity to do so.

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So, which books do you re-read and what attracts you to pick them up again and again?

The Scar Night Problem, or ‘why reviews keep screwing me over’

I keep a record of all the books I read, including a short, 30 second summary of my thoughts on the book. I’ve recently finished reading ‘Scar Night’ by Alan Campbell and thought I’d share this particular summary:

Hugely inventive but sometimes macabre just for the sake of it. Ultimately rewarding but a bit of a slog to get to the end.

Now, I don’t want to get into a full review here – Scar Night has been reviewed dozens of times and generally glowingly. However, this book and my final summary of it have brought something home to me that I’ve been noticing a lot recently. I keep reading books that have received brilliant reviews and finding myself not liking them, although I can’t immediately decide why. Let me explain.

Scar Night is, as I mentioned before, hugely inventive. It has more good ideas in it than some authors’ entire back catalogues. It’s beautifully written with fascinating characters and an even more fascinating setting. On my paperback copy, there are eighteen positive blurbs from respectable sources and, as a whole, I agree with what they say. And yet, I’ve really struggled to get to the end of this book. It’s literally taken me weeks to read it.

I encountered this same problem a few months ago with ‘The Lies of Locke Lamora’. Inventive, great fun, well-written and generally well-received by reviewers. And yet, I really struggled to get to the end.

In that case, I decided it was the lack of female characters that put me off. There simply weren’t any, or at least none that got to do anything other than die horribly so that the male characters could feel bad. In the case of Scar Night, it’s more complicated. There are female characters and I even quite like them. So why was this book such damned hard work to read?

I’m still not entirely sure. Ultimately, I think it may be that even though I liked the characters, I couldn’t identify with them. Admittedly, I’m getting close to GCSE English territory here (I hope never again to have to write about why characters are ’sympathetic’ to the reader), but I think my problem with Scar Night is that I feel I have nothing at all in common with any of the characters.

Clearly, this is my problem rather than the book’s, as plenty of other people liked it. Still, I’m starting to be more wary of books which are reviewed in terms of ‘gripping yarn’, ‘thrilling saga’ and ‘vivid imagery’ without really mentioning whether the characters are as believable – and yes, ’sympathetic’ – as they are grotesque.

Because I’ve Actually Made Some Progress

The fact that I’ve actually achieved something in my writing over the past week, despite being snowed under with essays, leads me to this very simple post. Here we have the word counts of my current two projects. The first is the still unnamed novel, which is proceeding nicely (although I’m very close to the end now, so it’s unlikely to actually reach 80k in the first draft):

Secondly, we have the short story, tentatively titled Hush, which is also going well:

And now I have a day of digging in the rain, mud and cold ahead of me on a Roman site in the middle of nowhere. Fingers crossed I find something interesting this time. Stones and clay do not count.

Some Thoughts on Book Reviewing

Note: I’m not a professional book reviewer so, like most of the things on this blog, these are just a few personal thoughts on the process. It may also be that some of the reviewing problems I’ve pointed out here are things I’ve been guilty of myself. After all, I’m still learning. With that out of the way…

Just a few minutes ago, I listened to a podcasted book review.  The reviewer’s thoughts on the book and indeed the name/author of that book are irrelevant for what I want to say, so I’ll leave both anonymous. However, the review itself brought home a few things to me about the process of reviewing and how best to put across your thoughts on a book, or indeed on a film, album or any other item.

I see reviewing as being about an individual’s opinion, even if that individual is reviewing for a newspaper or magazine or some other external publication. For that reason, even if I disagree with a review, I’m willing to accept that some people will feel the same way about the book, if enough reasons for the review are given. To put it bluntly, if you give a book a bad review, that’s not enough: you’ve got to spell out why it’s bad. Perhaps that’s a fairly obvious point, but too often I read or hear reviews in which opinions are not backed up, leaving me no wiser as to whether I’d feel the same way.

Then there are the reviews that simply list points about the book, instead of giving opinions. Individual facts about characters, locations and plot are often meaningless in the context of a review. It’s all very well knowing that the main character is a plumber with three kids, who lives in London and spends his Sunday mornings walking his dalmatian in the park, but unless that information is pertinent to the immediate plot, I’d prefer to find it out from the book itself. Instead, what the review should be telling me is whether that character’s journey from start to finish is interesting and whether the author has told it well.

As a final point, it occurs to me that book reviews are one of those things that are better in moderation. They need to be short, pithy and put across their point as succinctly as possible. If a review can’t tell me quickly whether a book is worth reading, I might as well just take the chance and read the book itself.

And as a final, final point, book reviews should never give away too much of the plot. It’s bad enough reading a blurb that reveals a plot point from two-thirds of the way through (like the book I’m reading now, unfortunately), but reviews tend to go into more detail and that’s even worse. Save exposition for the novel – I just want your opinion!