Where do you save your precious writing?

[KitDeLuca]

Hello everyone. I’m a longtime MNer but NC and new to this topic. Please would those of you who are writing (or have written) novels share some practical tips as to what you use to write and where you store your work?

I’ve written all my life as a hobby and I have loads of short stories, poems and half written bits of novels and outlines all over the place. Most of it is in hard copy scribbles in millions of notebooks (as I’m more creative when I write longhand) but over the years I’ve also tried to save some pieces in Word, in Google Drive and in iCloud with Pages on my iPad.

This year I’ve decided to properly go for it and focus on completing a novel. I know there is a long process to publication and I may never get there but I’d be doing it for the enjoyment of writing and the satisfaction of having written something and finished it.

My issue is I feel blocked by the IT. Do most of you write in Word? Where do you save and store your work? Do you trust the cloud based services like Google Drive and iCloud? Are they safe and secure places to save your original work?

I’m not a total Luddite I use various IT systems for work but for some reason I don’t know where to start with my creative writing projects.

Please advise oh wise wordsmiths....

I use a Chromebook for my writing, so I write in Google Docs and save it to Google Drive. Then convert to a .docx once it’s ready to send off.

@AppropriateAdult thanks for your response. Do you save copies on your hard drive too or just in Google Drive? Do you feel it's safe and private enough for sensitive work?

I keep research, notes etc on my PC with backup on Google drive, but the main Word doc of a work in progress I also email to myself at the end of every work day.

I have a specific laptop with files for each project - one for each book plus one for articles. I keep a master copy using a word document that i save on that laptop and on cloud. I email myself a hard copy to a different laptop at the end of each writing session as a ‘just in case’ version .

[quote KitDeLuca]@AppropriateAdult thanks for your response. Do you save copies on your hard drive too or just in Google Drive? Do you feel it's safe and private enough for sensitive work? [/quote]
I’ve never had any issues with it - been using this system now for about six or seven years. But yes, it would probably make sense to store a copy locally as well. I’m not worried about privacy issues personally. But if you have Word on whatever computer you’re using, it’s probably easiest to just use that and back it up regularly to an external hard drive.

I save my work to Dropbox, it's on my pc so I just copy and paste it in there. I tend to email myself separate chapters but when I start to compile them into the novel then I back up to the Microsoft cloud and copy to Dropbox. I live in fear of losing it!

I work on word, save on the cloud, then do a regular back up on the computer.
Also if I'm making a bigger than normal change I resave it, which gives another backup.

Thanks everyone. Emailing to self at the end of every days sounds like a good discipline to get into. I like the idea of organising my work in a folder structure all in one place I just need to get on a do it!

I work in Scrivener, I love it because it means I can keep all my work in one place and work in different chapters within the file, and also add research/synopsis/blurbs etc in different files. It's a fantastic piece of software for writers. I then keep it saved in Dropbox and it all seems to work well enough.

@Madhairday

I work in Scrivener, I love it because it means I can keep all my work in one place and work in different chapters within the file, and also add research/synopsis/blurbs etc in different files. It's a fantastic piece of software for writers. I then keep it saved in Dropbox and it all seems to work well enough.

@Madhairday, do you mind saying some more about what is so effective about Scrivener? I've read various things about it, but to be honest, I don't understand what advantages it has over Word for writing a novel. I have a Word folder for my current novel, one document for the actual work in progress and different documents for research, a grid for structure/plotting/keeping track of different characters, timelines etc. Scrivener sounds over-complex to me, but perhaps I'm just not seeing its potential? Is it really worth the money?

For me it's the ease of having everything together and being able to easily split it into sections, so instead of having a long document with 100000 words I have 30 documents with 3-4000 words, all chapters, so I can go in easily and edit from there. Think of it like a ring binder with dividers - you have your main novel a big bulk of it but with dividers between wherever you wish - chapters, scenes etc. Then you have extra dividers with things like characters, plot, research, quotes, artwork and anything else you can think of, all accessible on one screen. In a way it's a bit like windows explorer with files down the left side. It's got some amazing functionality I don't even touch the edges of but I love how it helps me organise my work. It's also got a corkboard section like a storyboard, and you can split the screen in two and work on two sections at once etc etc. I prefer working in it than Word because I feel like I can easily get lost in word and frustrated finding other files all the time whereas in scrivener it's there in front of me. There are loads of YouTube videos giving an idea of it that should give you the sense of whether it's for you - you sound very organised already so you may not find it useful - but for me it's revolutionalosed the way I write so I'm a fan.

You can also compile your work into Word at any time, so easy for when you want to format it for submissions and publishing.

Thanks, @Madhairday -- I should probably do the free trial, shouldn't I? But my agent is expecting a full draft within a fortnight and I have this feeling I could spend a lot of time twiddling and admiring Scrivener possibilities.

Do you really mean it when you say it's revolutionised the way you write? Do you mean it's changed what you're capable of, in that you're able to control, say, a plottier novel more easily, or something along those lines?

For instance, at the moment, I'm towards the end of a first draft and have just belatedly decided something about one POV character, so I need to go back and seed that into the entire MS, plus I recognise that one character is a bit underwritten, so I need to go back and address that. Is that the kind of thing that's more easily done with Scrivener? Or things like balancing two different plotlines or timelines?

(Apologies, @KitDeLuca, for the derail.)

Ohh you might want to put off the free trial til you've hit that deadline

It's revolutionalised it to the extent that I feel more in control of my books. When I wrote books in word I didn't feel so organised, I wrote reams of stuff without focus at times and it took a lot of paring down. In scrivener I had all this room to plot and make pretty pictures of flowcharts and storyboards, and it helped me to have all my research so accessible. I write non fiction as well as fiction and I'll often have my research file open along with the chapter I'm working on so I can cross reference easily and it just streamlines the process for me.

I think it has changed my writing because I feel more able to edit more comprehensively, and carefully. Word has the find and replace tool of course, but Scrivener has a lot I can do in terms of focused searching and one bit at a time. For the novel I'm working on I do think I plotted a whole lot more because I inputted a load of ideas in the scrivener doc before I even started writing, then was ready to go with it from that. Of course you can do that in word too but for me it's something about having it all neat and tidy and easy. It harks back to the days when I was a primary teacher and loved to organise all my files and the children's work in a really intuitive way. I think though that it suits some people but for others they don't see the point.

I do miss the word styles feature but use that when I compile it into word to get it ready for submission.

Ok, I definitely need to try it. But not until the draft is in!

I use google drive, plus I email each section to beta readers so there’s always copies floating about

@Wabe no need to apologise I'm reading with interest

[quote KitDeLuca]@Wabe no need to apologise I'm reading with interest [/quote]
I’m now wondering whether experienced editors can distinguish between ‘Scrivener novels’ and ‘Word novels’.

(Though I remain even more intrigued by people who write their first draft longhand. I absolutely can’t — my handwriting makes it look way too personal.)