Story Magic

128 - Tips and tricks for staying organized while writing

• Golden May

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about organization!

What you’ll learn from this episode: 

  • Emily and Rachel's personal processes
  • Deciding on what your priorities are first
  • Not using "organization" as a procrastination tool
  • Leaning into your brain and body's natural tendencies

Ready to make readers so in love with your characters they can’t stop biting their nails in anticipation?  Grab The Magic of Character Arcs free email course: https://www.goldenmayediting.com/arcsmagic

Join Tenacious Writing! With the perfect combo of craft, mindset, and community resources, you will build a writing life that feels sustainable, fulfilling, and fun—without any prescriptions or rules. Learn more: https://www.tenaciouswriting.com/

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Rachel: https://www.instagram.com/bookcoachrachel/

Emily: https://www.instagram.com/ebgoldenbooks/

Rachel:

Hey, writers.

Emily:

Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.

Rachel:

I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And today we are talking about organization.

Emily:

Organization. How do we say words after organization?

Rachel:

It's a good call and response.

Emily:

You know, it's our brand.

Rachel:

Yeah, it's our brand. It's just who we are. So I'll send.

Emily:

This came from a listener question, right?

Rachel:

Yes. So if you didn't know, you can email us questions for us to cover on the podcast. If you email podcast at. Is that what it is? Podcast? I can't even remember. I think it's just podcast.

Emily:

Yes, I think it's podcast.

Rachel:

Podcastoldenmayediting.com you can send your podcast questions. Yes, that's correct. You can send your podcast questions to podcastoldenmayediting.com so this came from a listener requested topic or a listener requested question. This is from Ali. So Ali asks, I am wondering if you have tips and tricks for staying organized while writing. This has been tricky for me as I have a million tabs open with backstory here and idea jots over there and research over here, and I start to feel overwhelmed. Any tips would be helpful. Thank you, Allie, for sending us this question. Um, I was. I am semi certain we've, like, maybe peppered over this in episodes time here and there at some point, but it's good for us to, like, actually talk about it as a full episode because we get this question in tw a lot also. Of, like, how do I manage all of my random notes?

Emily:

Yes.

Rachel:

So I'm very happy. Baby.

Emily:

Baby Writer me. I was like, how do I organize all the things?

Rachel:

Yeah, why don't you start? What do you. How did you organize things? If Baby Writer U was different then, now Writer U. She was different.

Emily:

She was different. Baby Writer used Grifner. I don't know that my. My process has changed all that much. I just. I love Scribner, don't get me wrong. And it's. It's so powerful, and it has so many cool, for me, distracting thingamajiggies that it can do. And so I didn't, you know, I tried to use a lot of them, and then I often found them overwhelming, and then oftentimes it was just a distraction tactic for me, which we can talk about. But, yeah, I tried. I did, um. I used Scrivener a lot. And then I. There were a couple of other ones that I tried out, like, what's the plotter? Plotter.

Rachel:

Plotter. P. L, O, T, T, R. I

Emily:

think it was that. And then there's like World Anvil.

Rachel:

That's for world building. Yep. World Anvil is a thing.

Emily:

Um, and so I tried like using those when I was working on Thrones like a million years ago because Thrones was like, so unwieldy and like, personally, I'm like, if you have that much going on, you probably have too much going on.

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

Your reader. If you can't follow it, your reader can't follow it. I can't imagine world building standpoint.

Rachel:

Like, what are George R.R. martin's notes like?

Emily:

Or Brandon Sanderson like, Sanderson just has people who like.

Rachel:

No, that's a great point. An entire team to manage that work his details.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yes.

Emily:

Which is like, if that's you, great, go for it. Create your wikis if it makes you happy. But if it's keeping you from writing, I feel like that's a big question and we should talk about. But that's not what you asked me, so we'll get there in a second. So, yeah, so I mostly. So I've used. I've dabbled in a lot of like, tools, but Scrivener was where I used to.

Rachel:

You're not using Dabble, which is a

Emily:

tool I've never used to dabble. I knew the word moment that came out of my mouth, you were gonna ask that. I've never used Dabble. Um, but anyway, so, yeah, so I've played with lots of tools. I just use Google. Even though they're like scraping all my stuff and stealing all my stuff. Yeah, like, whatever you use.

Rachel:

Like a Google Drive.

Emily:

Surveillance capitalism. I. Yeah, I use I. So historically, yes, I've used like a Google Drive folder. Now I just use it. Now that they have the tabs thing, I just use it. Like I used to use Scrivener. So the thing I liked about Scrivener was that I could have my Windows on the side. Like, I have a little list of like all my different documents on the side. I could just click back and forth from them. So that's what I liked about Scrivener for organization is I could have my character arcs. So I'd. If I forgot their internal obstacle, which I do every day, I could go like, revisit their table and like world building stuff. So I would have all that stuff on the side. And so I just do that in Google now. Like, I have all my details, research. Things that I want are just in tabs in a Google document. So the. And the reason the Only reason that I use Google now instead of Scrivener is that I have my alpha reader has access to. To that actual physical document.

Rachel:

Because I change.

Emily:

Like, I change things. Yeah, I change things so often that, like, I don't want to have to send her a revised scene that I sent her yesterday and she hasn't read yet because, like, I, you know, so. So it's just easier for me to share things that way with people versus Scrivener. I always felt like, oh, I'm now I'm editing in Google because somebody's reading it, but then I have to take that copy and I have to go copy it back into Scrivener. And it just. I was. I started going back and forth once I started sharing my work like that, and it was just stressful because I' I didn't know where my most recent copies of things were. So because I have somebody reading scene by scene, it's just easier for me that way. But I do kind of miss it. Scrivener was really fun. And I like the Scrivener focus mode where you can just like, black out your screen and like, write on a dark screen. Like, I kind of miss that sometimes. Sometimes I'll do character interviews in Scrivener just so I can use that feature and like, really, like, zoom in and focus on like a, you know, a character's voice during a medium visualization. But I don't organize things in there anymore. So yeah, it's really just one document.

Rachel:

Do you use your phone at all?

Emily:

No.

Rachel:

God, no.

Emily:

You're never small a box. How do people, like, use their brains and use that small of a box?

Rachel:

Well, I mean, don't you, like, have a thought one day and you're like, I better write this down before I forget it?

Emily:

Okay. I guess sometimes I know I don't have. Lately I. So I. So I used to do that. So I use my Remarkable.

Rachel:

Okay.

Emily:

That's the other thing I use is my remarkable.

Rachel:

Yes.

Emily:

I put handwritten notes in my Remarkable. So I have one document in my Remarkable. That's just chaos. Like, it's just thoughts. So my thoughts kind of usually go into my remarkable first in some kind of amorphous, form, and then I end up, like, typing it up into the Google document when it's, like, finalized. You know, when I have thoughts about a character that I want to kind of have to reference. So I don't reference my remarkable that often. It's really just like, for me to like, physically get a thought out through my Hand. Yeah.

Rachel:

Okay, so picture you're biking to pick up Bailey from school, and you're like, oh, I just had this excellent idea. Then what?

Emily:

I just hold onto it.

Rachel:

Oh, my God.

Emily:

Cool. I used to. So before I had my Remarkable, I used to use Otter quite a bit. Okay.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

So the Otter AI app, where I would just record myself having a thought. Like, there's. There have been, like, some emails and podcast ideas that I've. In the past. Like, when I had Otter on my phone, I don't have it on my phone anymore because I don't bring my phone. I don't use my phone that much now that in the last, like, six months.

Rachel:

I know. Now that you're divorcing from, like, I

Emily:

don't have my phone. So. So I'm like, how do I do this? Um, I don't know. There's a lot more space in my head now that I don't have. For me, now that I'm not using my phone so much that it. I don't. I just hold on to ideas. I just remember it.

Rachel:

And then when you get home, you write it down in your Remarkable or Google Doc. Your Google Big One.

Emily:

Yeah. Nice. Yeah. When I was working on Crimson and stuff, and I had ideas while camping and whatever, you would use Otter and record myself talking about it, or I'd write it into my Notes app. But then notes stress me out. It's too chaotic. I need stuff in one place. So remarkable is where it's at now.

Rachel:

Chaotic how?

Emily:

Just when I open the Notes app, there's just too many ideas in there, like, about all kinds of things. Like, life, Golden May. Like, it's too much. I've tried to organize it so many times and, like, gotten so stressed out trying to organize it that I just stopped using it. Cause I was like, I can't.

Rachel:

I just can't. What's the difference between, like, a Golden May thought that you have going on the Notes app? And, like, I don't use it anymore. Not at all. So if you have Golden May thoughts, what do you do with them?

Emily:

Just hold on to them. I feel like I. This is such a good question. I feel like we're, like, deep diving into my brain right now. Yeah, we are.

Rachel:

This is a tips and tricks episode.

Emily:

I really couldn't tell you because I feel like historically I would use my Notes app and I would use Otter for any ideas that came through, but I stopped using those apps when I went off social media. Yeah. Because so many of my, like, random thoughts were like, oh, I should post this on Instagram, or I should say this in. You know what I mean? Like, on substack or whatever. And so I would, like, be. Those were the thoughts that I was like, I have to cling to this or I'm gonna forget it. But the deeper thoughts that I have about my book and, like, gold in my emails and, like. Like, there's fewer. Like, I'm trying to create less content in my brain. Or I have been. I just went back on social media today, so TBD on what happens a week from now. Your life will be in shambles.

Rachel:

You're like.

Emily:

Because there's so much less content I'm trying to create in my brain all at once. And so if I have an idea on the way to school, it's not that big of a deal because I'll just. It'll still be there when I go home because I'm not going to be distracted by other ideas that I need to put on Instagram stories, you know? Yeah. So tpd, tbd. I don't know what happens, because that's an experiment question.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

What about you?

Rachel:

Like, an experiment.

Emily:

That was a lot of me.

Rachel:

No, that's good, because, you know, when people. When people will go into this. But when people ask us this question, I think a lot of the time they're not only asking for, like, practical advice, they're also asking for, like, I think you do it better than me, and that must be why you're writing more, or et cetera, et cetera. And that. That is not the case, my friends, like, we're just trying to figure this out the best we can. But I so little, like, baby writer Rachel wanted to be a notebook girly and, like, wanted to write ideas in notebooks. And then I realized that, like, those notebooks don't go onto my computer. So I had, like, Evernote for a while. Because Evernote, I know Evernote, but, like, Evernote was one of the first things that if you took a picture of it, it would sync, like, from your phone to your. Like, Evernote was one of the first tools that had really good sync. And so I used it for a while, but then you had to start paying for it. And I was like, fuck that. I'm not gonna pay for this. So. Okay, I'll. I was always trying to figure out the best way to organize my ideas, but I always came back to, they have to be on my computer, so how can I get the most seamless way back to my computer? So I used Evernote. It petered Out I used the Scrivener app on my phone. That sync is shitty and terrible so I would lose things. So I primarily needed a way to organize my thoughts between like when I'm on the go and when I'm at my computer. And the Notes app is the best syncing out there. So I use a couple tools to keep my thoughts organized. But the the e like what I need out of an organization tool is that it is number one searchable and the search works really well, which is the case in the Notes app. So I don't have my notes organized in any which way because I know that I can just search for what I need from them. And then I use Scrivener to keep like all my important stuff going. Scrivener is where I write. Scrivener is where I keep track of character stuff, plotting, free writes. Everything that I am going to do in writing starts or ends in Scrivener. But I then will like put it in Google Docs. If I'm going to share it with my alpha readers or my writing group, I will copy from Scrivener into another doc. But Scrivener is always the most up to date thing and that was like a decision that I made where to stay organized. I have to have like a master file and that is Scrivener. But if like let's say that I have a thought when I'm walking to get Rose from school or then I'll put it in my Notes app. I know it will sync to my computer and when it's there then I can take it from my Notes app on my computer and put it into. Into Scrivener.

Emily:

Yeah, it's very smooth.

Rachel:

It's very smooth. Like I needed something where the sync was pretty seamless because I am bouncing around a lot from my phone to my computer and the, the most seamless way to do that is through the Notes app for me.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Then you just cannot beat Apple's native sync. You just can't. So I mean if you're using another like Windows or another processor like or software, that was a priority for me. I needed something that would sync between the two so that I could easily transfer it from one place to another and transfer it ultimately so that it wound up in Scrivener. But depending on the time, the time of where I'm at in the writing process, I use other like tangential writing tools. So I'm going to draft in Scrivener always I use Notion to plan my revisions. Notion has Incredible Sync. So that was again, really important to me is that the Notion app on my phone syncs stupid well to my computer and if that were not the case, I would not be using it. So if I have a revision idea, I will put it in Notion or I will put it in my Notes app and then if I'm revising it goes into Notion eventually. And I use Notion to do Scrivener doesn't do well with like, checklist items. So I don't find it to be very helpful for like, project management. And I think that Revisions are a project management project. And I don't put it in Asana because we use Asana for work. So Asana is my work project manager and Notion is my writing project manager and that helps keep them separate.

Emily:

So. Interesting.

Rachel:

Yeah. And then I. I'll use Google Sheets for revision planning also. But that's because I don't love the spreadsheet. I think that. I think Sheets in Google Sheets has great sync, but I never use it on my phone, so it's irrelevant. But Google as a tool has better sync than like, Numbers.

Emily:

Like, yeah, numbers. Yeah. Why does Numbers. Yeah.

Rachel:

And like, I'm not going to use Excel for this because I don't pay for Microsoft. So yeah, Sheets is the best way for me to plan like a, a scene by scene revision. But it starts in Notion and then I expand it into Sheets. But then I know that like, I'm only ever probably going to be using Google Sheets for revision planning. And like, I only ever use Notion for like, revision planning. As far as keeping track of like a million tabs with backstory and ideas like, I had to choose. I will only put ideas in one place. And for me, if I have an idea that is on the go, it's going to go in my Notes app and that Notes app will sync to my computer and I can put it in Scrivener. If I'm at, if I'm at my computer, ideas that I have are going in Scrivener. Research that I have is going in Scribner. I do have a million tabs open, but if I'm like. So right now I'm doing a whole bunch of research on like, exclusive New York social clubs for like, rich businessmen that can get away with anything. And I have two, like two tabs open to do research on those things. When I find like the resource that I want to use, I will copy paste it into Scrivener and then I will know if I need to find it again. It's Going to be in Scrivener. Yeah, but that was like a. When I felt overwhelmed, like years ago, I was like, okay, you just have to pick something and stick with it. And then I picked something and stuck with it. And if I, if I change the way that I do. Another thing that I really like about Scrivener as far as organization, is that you can copy the things from one project, which is basically like a picture your manuscript. So I, I have a different quote project for each of my different books.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

But if I write something in one of those projects, it is so easy to copy it to another one. So if I'm working on like, you know, I'm working on book four, I copied over like all of my character planning stuff, all of my backstory, all of the stuff from previous projects. I copied them now to this fourth project. So what I have in this fourth project is just a result of the three previous projects that I did. And Scrivener just moves it over and it's perfect and simple and I don't have to worry about like manually copy pasting like 12 gajillion documents.

Emily:

Yeah. It's so funny listening to you because first of all, how hilarious is it that you're more organized than me when it comes to like, like you have more organizational steps than me when it comes to writing, which is funny just given our personalities. But I also think for me, that didn't used to be the case. Like when I was working on Thrones.

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

I like, I had like. But that was my perfectionism.

Rachel:

Yes.

Emily:

Like, that was my. I was using. And so maybe we can kind of shift there. Because for me, organization used to be a way to like distract myself when I didn't actually want to do the hard work of actually writing or when I had self doubt, like I would organize, I'd be like, well, if I have a detailed timeline and detailed like all these other things and like sometimes that you need a timeline. Like I had a timeline for Crinston because I had to figure out who's. Who was what age and what time and when all these things happen. But. And so I like downloaded all kinds of apps and things to do that and like ended up doing it in a Google sheet because I just couldn't like the, the learning curve of trying to figure out those apps was not worth it. Like I just needed the information somewhere and so I just put it in a Google sheet. But when it comes to like my new stuff, I do feel like for each project I've kind of Gotten less and less. Like, I, I do less and less organization because it was a distraction for me. And also, like, I don't use it that much. Yeah. Like, I'm. I'm so curious. How often do you actually have to

Rachel:

search for something Only in my notes like app. If I know that I wrote down like, you know, because right now one of the struggles that I'm having is the plot of my fourth book is just so intricate. So I'll be like writing plot ideas. And then at the same time, I'm still using Notes app for golden May stuff for other things. So then it's like, if I can't immediately see it in my list of notes, then I will search like plot idea or sometimes I'll use. The reason why I like the Notes app so much is for its searchable feature. So, like, if I have a gold in my email idea, I'll like, write at the top email idea and then I'll write out my idea. And I probably. I might not come back to that email for a couple months. But I know that if I search email idea in notes, I see like five different emails I've already written that I just didn't want to use at the time. And I'm always going to probably title them email idea or our post idea or backstory idea or a to be plot idea. And then I like search for that. So I would say I use the search function frequently for many different things.

Emily:

Yeah, I feel like, for me, because I put all the, like, big stuff that I need to reference, like character tables and research, like key research pieces and things that I need, like, they're all cut. Like, most of what I need is in those tabs in my Google Doc. And then if I, if I really need to find something, like some detail or idea that I had like three months ago, I feel like that for me, that's extremely rare. Um, and like, I just have to go sifting through my remarkable pages and like, eventually I'll find it. But I, I feel like I remember there was an author. I can't remember what her name was, and I'm trying to find it in our notes document. But she, she was that mystery author that we talked to. And she basically was like, if you forgot the note, you probably don't need it. Do you remember this?

Rachel:

Mary Beth Whelan or something?

Emily:

That's what I was gonna say, but then I wasn't sure anyway. And that just, like, blew my mind because I was like, yeah, if it's important, it will stick in My head, at least when it comes to writing, not when it comes to Instagram posts and like, you know, threads ideas, because those aren't as important. But I feel like the deeper stuff for the story, like, tends to stick with me. So I just, Yeah, I just kind of slimmed it down. I was like, okay, I have this one place in my Remarkable where I just word vomit all my notes. And then I have this, which, you know, I can search through. And then I have my, my Google Doc. But apparently remarkable now has a search handwriting feature.

Rachel:

Great.

Emily:

So that I think could be really cool. Like, it makes me even more excited to like keep putting notes in there because I'll be able to search them for, for ideas. But yeah, just, I think simpler is probably better for most people who have this question, I think so. Simple, easy to search. And if it's important to you that it syncs, make sure it syncs. I feel like those are the three things. But like, you don't need all these crazy organizational timeline world building, like, tools to write a book. Like, if, if you're getting stuck on that, you're probably trying to avoid writing. I hate to say it, but I think that's really.

Rachel:

I think that's often very true. Um, I have worked with plenty of one on one clients that used their organization as a procrastination tool. Um, but we did. This was super fun. And the other day in tenacious writing, we did a Scrivener show and tell event. And we're going to do more of these for other writing programs. But we basically like hopped on a zoom call. And those of us that used Scrivener showed how we used it. Like, we shared our screens and we walked people through how we used it. And it was so interesting to see, like, I use Scrivener pretty pared down, I feel like, pretty simply. And then there were other members in our community that, that were using a lot more of the features that I do and had built that into their process to do that. And it was, it was incredible to see, like, how people were using it. And then we discuss, like, why we chose Scrivener over a different tool. And for me, it just boiled down to like, I bought Scrivener first and I'm, I, I know that if I buy another writing tool, it is simply to spend money. It is not because I think that I need it. It was because I think it will fix me. So whenever I feel frustrated, I'm like, ooh, let me check out Dabble. Maybe that will solve all my problems. I know that about myself because I've done it a gajillion times. So I'm in Scrivener because it does everything that I need. But when we were on that show in Telco, we had a couple of people who mentioned, this looks so cool. And I could see myself going down a rabbit hole.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

If I'm not careful. And it's like, yes. Very, very much so. Because we often feel like if we were just organized, if we just had our notes all in the same place, if we just. If we just had all of our ideas together, writing would suddenly be easy. Yeah. And that's not the case. It's not the case. But I. I completely agree with what you said of, like, the more that you got out of perfectionism, this more simple.

Emily:

You made your process.

Rachel:

Yeah, I felt the same way. Um, I. I'm sure that describing, like, the ways that I talk about Scrivener is more complicated than what you're doing with Google Docs, but to me, it doesn't feel more complicated because I knew that if I go into all of Scrivener's features, I'm going to be doing it because I think it will make me a better writer. When it's not going to make me a better writer. It's just going to make me have more fancy tools. There's nothing wrong with having fancy tools. But for me, that would have been like. That would have been me trying to tell myself that my disorganization was the problem. And, like, my disorganization has never been the problem. It's been my fear of making mistakes. It's been my fear of it not being right. It's been my fear of thinking if I. If I don't find that genius idea that I had three days ago, my whole story is going to fall apart. It's like, no, it's. No, it's not. Yeah.

Emily:

It's a lack of trust. I think the desire or the. The. The thought that you need to have better organization is a lack of trust that you're going to be able to move forward without everything being perfectly organized. And I think that's where my struggle is. I. I struggle with this a lot with revisions. I think I've mentioned before that I don't even plot my revisions anymore because I used to plot scene by scene, and it was just. It's so overwhelming. Like, I have to feel my way through them. And so it kind of comes down to, like, if you're going to use a tool, are you using it because you think you have to, because you think if you don't, you're going to screw something up or are you using it because it's actually helpful for you? Like, even in outlining, like I was, it's usually very helpful for me to outline scene by scene and act by action. I went to outline my act too, and I was like, I cannot see it. Like, I just. I cannot see it. I got like four scenes in and it just all started to unravel and I was like, I got to write these four scenes, God damn it. And so just knowing myself, I was like, yeah, I feel like I should have an act to scene by scene outline. Like, that feels like what I should do, but it doesn't actually feel like what's going to help me or what's going to make me feel good or give me clarity. And so I think it's. Yeah. Just investigating where that desire and question is coming from. If you're a brand new writer and you're like, I got to pick something to write in, just pick something. You know, like, pick a thing. And then if it's. If it's not for you, it will make it clear why it's not for you, which will give you information you can use to figure out what else might be useful for you. And I will say Scrivener is like, you have to pay for it.

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

It's a. It's somewhat of an investment.

Rachel:

You pay for it. I think I paid $50 for it like 10 years ago.

Emily:

I don't know. I did too. But I don't know how much it costs now. So I don't.

Rachel:

But I do know they still have the model that you pay for it once. There are writing tools that have a subscription model, so I. Scrivener does not. It is. You pay for it once and you have it. Which I appreciated also.

Emily:

Yeah. So my advice, I guess if you're brand new and you don't have a system that works for you at all, it's free to use Google.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

So, you know, you can start there. Or if you buy Scrivener, I don't think you're going to regret it. Like, it can do anything you're going to want it to do, and it can do as little or as much as you want it to do. And so like, and it's just that one price. So I don't think, you know, unless it's very important to you to be able to have other people see it or have it synced to your phone. Like, just buy it. Because it. You'll be able to set it up in a way that works for you. It's very, very nimble in that way. Yeah, but, yeah, you also use a Word document. Like, if you are out there using a Word document and you're like, oh, man, am I doing it wrong? If it's working for you, no, you're not.

Rachel:

Use a Word document. You know, because, like, look, the basic. If you don't know anything about file management, which I guess now that I'm thinking about it, not everybody does. Like, I learned file management in college, which is having folders and organizing your documents and saving them in the right place. I think that is an organizational life skill that you might need to develop. So if you have, like, what I love about Scrivener is that I don't have to organize all my files. It saves them all together. However, if you're going to use something like Word, it probably would benefit you to have a folder for all of your files that are about this book. And then if you're going to have a backstory file, it goes in the same folder. If you're going to have a research file, it goes in the same folder. And the manuscript, it goes in the same folder. You can put them all in the same doc. Sure. You could also, if you have, like, a lot of different documents, just manage them through folder management.

Emily:

I mean, that's what we're talking about. Like, yes, at its foundations is where are your files going to go and how are you going to access them? Are you going to access them inside Scrivener? Are you going to access them inside a Google document or a Google folder? Are you going to access them in a folder on your dock? Like, I think first you just have to ask, like, who do you want to have access to those folders? Do you need to be able to have other people have access and what devices do you want to have access to them on? Those are the key questions. And then I feel like once you can answer those questions, it'll be very clear which ones do and don't support that. And then you just pick one and play around with it. Um, and then just pay attention to when you get your ideas and what you have access to when you get your ideas and how you can access them when you need them again.

Rachel:

Yeah, Experiment. Try it. You know, if. If being available on your phone is important to you, try phone things. If that's not, don't worry about your phone. You know, if you're A separate. If your writing never happens on your phone, don't worry about syncing ups. Why would you need that? Yeah, so I really like this idea of like maybe set out with like what would be the most useful for you and then try to find things within that and experiment and try around. Obviously the goal is to. I don't think many of us are trying to spend as much money as possible on these tools. But assuming that you're not doing this because you think the organization will fix your writing and you. It's not a bad thing to spend money on tools that make your life easier. Yeah, that's why we have money. So if you are wanting to try new things, ask around. We in our community have people that use Scrivener Dabble, Plottr, Ulysses. Like everyone kind of seems to use something different and in different ways. Google Drive, Word docs. Like no one, no one thing is better than the other things. It just is. What is going. What are you going to use? If you're not going to use it, don't do it.

Emily:

If you open it and you're overwhelmed. If you get a, if you get a free trial like I have for like everything on the Internet and you get a free trial and you're like, I don't know how to set this up. Back up, back up. It's not worth it in my opinion.

Rachel:

Yeah, I had a writer, one of my one on one clients use Figma, which. Have you ever used figma?

Emily:

I have not.

Rachel:

It's a wireframing tool for UX designers and she was using it to plot her novels. And I would see, she would send me her Figma files and that's where I would leave comments for her inside figma. And I was like, this is incredible. And then as soon as I got it for myself and opened it, I was like, there is zero way I'm ever doing this. Never happened. Never.

Emily:

You'll know instantly. And if you're inside, that reaction is like, oh God. Like just listen to it. Just listen. That's why I like Scrivener. Like it can do all kinds of things, but when you open it, it's really just a doc file. Like so you can get started immediately. If you're not able to get started immediately, like ask yours. Like really sit with why you're doing it.

Rachel:

Yeah. And one more. Okay, I could go on a. One more little plug. I really enjoy using Apple's native apps. I've talked about Notes. They also have Freeform which syncs very well between your phone and Your computer and Freeform I will use to, like, make mind maps. I don't use it very often, but I will use it if I need to, like, get my plot ideas out in a very. Freeform is like a. How would you describe. What is that called? It's like a. It's like a blank page. It feels to me like a whiteboard. It's a whiteboarding apple whiteboard.

Emily:

Yeah, Yeah.

Rachel:

A whiteboard where you can move things around however you want. You can draw, you can add new things. You can have shapes and cool shapes and you can connect dots and things. It literally is like if you have a digital whiteboard. And I find that type of brainstorming very helpful. And then when I have some brain ideas that are like in a. A decently understandable spot, then I will again move them back to Scrivener.

Emily:

But why don't you use your Remarkable for that?

Rachel:

The remarkable to me is another thing I have to carry around. And that's generally why I don't like it. And like, fascinating. I also think that if I make a change on, like my Freeform, it's the same change on my phone. So then I can just go. But if I make a change on my Remarkable and then I open the Remarkable on, it's like just. It feels like an extra step for me. And because it's a whole other tool I have to carry around that I'm not already carrying, I'm always gonna have. I like, I'm always carrying my phone, I'm always carrying my laptop. Never have my Remarkable. It's like a third thing.

Emily:

Interesting.

Rachel:

It feels just very clunky to me.

Emily:

I'm hesitant to like, promote it because it's so expensive. Um, I love it.

Rachel:

I love clients.

Emily:

I would tell everybody. It's so funny. Cause I don't use it for client stuff. I only use it for writing mostly and like notes, for ideas, for emails and things like that. But. But yeah. So for me, it's the thing I do bring when I don't have my laptop. And so it's kind of for. Cause I used to always carry a journal. Like I was always. I love to write by hand. And so for me it's just replace those things. But I do love how it. How it syncs. And that's where I kind of draw ideas and mind maps and stuff. But I've never. So I've never used Freeform. But again, this just goes to show, like, there's different ways to do all the things you need to do. Just pick one just try it.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

Yeah. Okay.

Rachel:

Good luck. Thanks again to Ali for this question. I want to say again, this is such a common question. We get it all the time. Like people always asking us these things. So I hope these, you know, tips were helpful based on how we do things. And if you're, if you're still interested, this is always a question you can ask a writer friend or you can ask people on social media. I think everybody does it slightly differently. So thank you for this question. If you have more questions podcastoldenmayediting.com you can email us.

Emily:

Alrighty. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

Rachel:

Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of Evil Magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

Emily:

Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.

Rachel:

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