Today I bring you a guest post from Gavin Nachbar. Gavin is a freelance writer who cannot be found anywhere in the world without his iPhone. As a writer, he has written for a couple of magazines including Hyphen Magazine and The Escapist Magazine.

Gavin doesn’t have a site of his own right now, but says you can feel free to email him with any questions about the iPhone!

Back in 2007, Apple.’s iPhone was released to a crowd of cheering fans who couldn’t wait to have their phone and iPod together in one. They were excited to be able to get their email and go online in places where WiFi had previously said “no”. In two short years, though, the iPhone has turned into so much more.

The iPhone has not gone without criticism, though, and many people will swear by their Blackberries. Throughout the election, we heard about Barack Obama’s obsession with his Blackberry, and many of us couldn’t help but think “Maybe I should get one of those?” Both iPhones and Blackberries are great in their own right, and either would be a great choice for a writer.

Then what sets these two phones apart? The iPhone has over 25,000 third party applications ready for download, and that number is only growing. Different applications serve different purposes, and they do all kinds of things. Some of them can identify a song on the radio while others can give you directions back to where you parked your car. Of all of these applications, here are 6 of the best for writers to use.

[Note from Dustin: For more info or to download these apps, please visit the iPhone apps store either on your phone or in iTunes.]

1. Text Editor

One of the major knocks on the iPhone, since day one, has been that it is much harder to type on than other phones, particularly the Blackberry. Anybody with fingers larger than a 12-year old’s will run into problems typing on the small touchscreen keys. The way that the iPhone makes up for the difficultly typing is by having a great spelling corrector. Text Editor is one of the many applications that works to fix the “small keys” problem. With Text Editor, each key is two times as large as the typical iPhone’s keys making it much easier for us as writers to type longer notes, essays, or even books. Cost: $0.99

2. Voice Notes

You know that time you were sitting at work or cooking dinner and you have a “light bulb above the head” moment, but when you’re sitting at your computer later that night you can’t for the life of you remember what that idea was? Enter Voice Notes. All it takes it two taps and you can talk as if you are making a phone call. Just hit the play button when you have a brain cramp later, and you’re good to go. Price: Free

3.Photonote

Just like when you have an idea in your head, most writers know that feeling of seeing the inspiration for an article. Photonote uses the iPhone’s 2 Megapixel camera and combines it with a program similar to Text Editor. This application allows you to snap a picture easily, and then write a caption to remind you of why it is you took that picture in the first place.

4. Dictionary with Spell Check

This app has made the impossible…possible! You can now bring that 5 lb. dictionary on the road with you without being weighed down by a giant book. Easy look up makes it possible for writers to just search a word, or one close, and this app gives you the definition and even more important, the correct spelling! Price: $2.99 (Larger dictionaries can be bought for as much as $29.99)

5. Worklog

This app was made for freelancers. Period. As freelancers, we’re always looking for ways to track how long we’ve worked on a certain project, to know how much to charge, etc. Enter Worklog. With an extremely simple interface, Worklog was made with the freelancer in mind. With that said, it is not perfect. One of te major knocks on the app is that is it not designed to track your work for more than a handful of projects. If you are working on a dozen articles at a given time, the app will have some trouble tracking your work on each individual project. Price: Worklog Lite: Free, Worklog Full: $7.99

6. Pandora Radio

There is only one thing better than music, and that is…free music! We listen to music as we write, we listen to it in the car, and everywhere else we can! With the iPhone making it possible to listen to music in more and more places, Pandora Radio is an application that streams free Internet radio stations directly into your phone. One can choose their songs, sorting by genre, or by searching for a favorite artist or song. With that, the application will sort through it’s database and find the song you are looking for, as well as ones similar to it. Price: Free

All in all, for many writers the iPhone is a dream. Personally, after buying mine half a year a go, I can’t imagine what life was like before it. With that said, the number of WiFi hot spots around the county are increasing every day, and as a writer you often don’t even need the internet, just a computer. The iPhone does not, and will not, replace your home computer or laptop, but it will while you’re on the road.

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For most people, “becoming a writer” means first and foremost getting published. And really, getting published for pay. That first sale is a watershed moment for the fledgling writer, a moment of validation that you have something to say that other people want to hear.

These days, getting published is less and less of a challenge – but getting that first paycheck can be harder than ever. The Internet has opened up a huge range of opportunities for people to publish their work free or for insultingly low rates – blogging, article sites, search engine optimization, and so on. While these can be great ways to start building a reputation for yourself and even earn a couple of dollars here and there, they simply are not the basis of a strong writing career, and the low barrier to entry makes it hard to feel like you’ve made much of an accomplishment.

National markets – whether websites, magazines, or book publishers – with editors, production staff, and marketing departments are what we’re usually looking for in terms of publication, and they tend to pay something at least within the ballpark of a decent amount – something we can feel positive about. Unfortunately, these markets are highly competitive at the best of times, and getting more so as an increasing number of publishers fail or scale back in response to tough economic times – not just the recession, but increasing postage costs and paper costs have hurt publishers at  the same time that audiences have increasingly turned to free entertainments on the Internet.

All that said, there is still a large market for professional writing. Every magazine on the newsstand, every book in the bookstore, and almost every A– and B-list website on the Internet needs high-quality professional content and is produced by someone willing to pay good authors to produce it. And the good news is, once you get past the first couple of sales, you can start to relax – first of all, you’ll feel more comfortable about your own marketability, and second, you’ll have a growing body of “clips” (samples) to impress future editors with.

Start at the top

The process of getting into print has several purposes for the budding writer. One is to give that sense of validation, and the hunger for this often drives writers to make un-smart decisions early on, like publishing for free or low pay for too long under the guise of “paying dues”.

A more important function of early publication is to see where you stand in the writing field – how good are you really? This is a lot more important than validation, at least as far as your career is concerned, as the less time you waste publishing beneath your level, the sooner you can earn the freedom to follow your muse wherever it leads you.

So my advice is this: send your first pitches or submissions to the highest-level outlets you can find. That is, if you’re writing about politics, pitch Harper’s or Atlantic Monthly or The Nation; if you’re writing about sports, pitch Sports Illustrated; if you write short stories, pitch The Paris Review. You will probably get rejected – which isn’t such a bad thing in and of itself, as failure usually teaches us pretty important lessons. If/When you are turned down, turn to the next highest-status outlet in your niche, then the next-highest, and so on down the “totem pole” until you get a piece accepted.

The idea is to start at the highest possible level. If you don’t have any clips yet, refer editors to your blog, or ask some respected bloggers in your niche if they could use a guest post by you (most will accept, since most don’t pay anything and have little to lose) and use those posts as clips. If you’re submitting finished manuscripts, don’t worry about the lack of clips – have a great cover letter and a great opening, so your material can speak for itself.

This takes time, and may well engender a bit of disappointment (though if you keep telling yourself you’re querying top markets you aren’t likely to get into, the sting of rejection might be more manageable). But far too often people who start with the no-pay, easy markets stay there for way too long, uncertain of themselves and unwilling to move out of their safe zone – even when their writing merits much wider attention (and more pay).

Next Time: Building on the first sale to create a platform for yourself.

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So, you want to be a writer.

It can be daunting to know how to get started as a writer. A lot of us feel we can write, know we can write – or better yet, know we can’t not write. We love the unfolding of stories beneath our pens, the spray of words across a computer screen, the sound of imagery narrated in our heads. We are story-tellers, truth-seekers, teachers, and sharers of life’s joys and sorrows, beauties and uglinesses.

But there’s a huge gap between scribbling our thoughts in a journal or writing a couple of essays in a college class and actually being a writer. I know I’ll be contradicted by… well, by everyone on the Internet trying to make a buck selling you their Super-Amazing Get-Rich-Quick-Writing-from-Home System for only $97 or $297 or $497, but while writing may come easily to you (and it doesn’t especially matter if it doesn’t), actually being a writer is hard, hard work. Not the hardest ever, but hard enough.

I don’t say this to discourage you, or to test your mettle, or anything like that. I want you to be a writer. Or I want you to at least have given it a shot, to have at least tried it on – better that you try and fail than to not become a writer out of fear, laziness, or simple lack of knowledge. But if you’re going to become a writer, I’d like you to be prepared for the long haul, and all those scammy “anyone can write” programs and products do a piss-poor job of preparing would-be writers for the job of actually writing.

So this series, which I intend to be 4 posts long (but that’s subject to change if I feel like it), will look at what it takes to get into writing as a professional pursuit. The goal is to take you from getting started to the point where you’re just getting your feet under you and “standing up” in the writing world. I hope you won’t quit your job and hole up with this blog and a stack of legal pads – writing is a dangerous career and all writers have to make sure they have a steady, reliable income, whether at a “day job”, through an established network of publishers and editors, or via a constant stream of freelance commercial work.

Building Up Your Chops

The first step you need to take if you’re going to become a writer is to build up the basic skills you’ll need to write well. If you dream of becoming a writer, you might already feel you write pretty well – get over yourself. While you may have a way with words, there is no writer who can’t do with a little improvement (read in most cases: “a lot of improvement”) .

Learning to write well is more than just learning command of grammar, structure, and narration – though those are all important. On top of that, you need to learn the jargon of your new industry – what a “dek”, “lede”, and “nut graf” are; the difference between a novella and a novelette; the ins and outs of direct submissions vs. using an agent; how to write a query letter or proposal; how to identify an appropriate market for your work; and so on.

That’s not to say you  shouldn’t be writing while you’re learning. By all means, write! But make sure you’re working on the other stuff too. Taking writing classes and workshops, reading books about writing, and blogging are all ways to build up your basic writing chops – get into them!

Take classes

If you have the time and money, you might consider pursuing a college degree in creative writing or journalism. While the jury’s out on whether these programs are a fast-track to fame and riches – or even to publication – the skills you learn will certainly help you in whatever path you decide to pursue as a writer.

However, a college degree is by no means essential – plenty of writers, even most writers, don’t have a degree in writing, and many don’t have any degrees at all.

But the classroom experience can be quite useful – you’ll get some feedback (at least from your instructor; students are supposed to give feedback but somewhat notoriously most do not, or give useless feedback) and you’ll have ample opportunity to push your skills into unknown territory.

Your local community college probably has dozens of writing classes you can take for usually rock-bottom process. Semester-long for-credit courses at the community college I teach at run about $130.

Community colleges, and many universities as well, also offer shorter not-for-credit courses through their adult extension programs. These courses might meet only once or twice a week for 6 weeks or every other Wednesday for two months or whatever. Because they are intended for adults they often offer courses in the evenings and on weekends to accommodate working schedules.

Other options include the Learning Annex if they have it in your city, local writing conferences (which often offer workshops as part of the program), or short programs offered nationally with 2–4 weeks residency.

Books

These are some of my favorite books on writing, the ones I’ve found most useful over the years.

• William Zinsser, On Writing Well: This book is my go-to book for writerly style. With clear, likeable language, Zinsser spells out how to craft solid, readable, and stylish prose. This book is a joy to read, and I find myself “dipping in” quite regularly when I need a dose of inspiration.
• Stephen King: On Writing: Easily one of the best books ever about the process of writing. You don’t have to be a fan of King (I’m not) to recognize that the man knows how to write in ways that reach deep into the hearts and souls of readers. Here he gives advice both on how to reach your audience and how to structure your life as a writer – all wrapped up in an inspiring and at times heartbreaking auto-biography of King’s own writing journey.
• Robert Bly: Secrets of a Freelance Writer: Although intended for aspiring freelance writers – and particularly for commercial writers – Bly offers plenty of advice about managing your career as a writer, as well as very strong tips on crafting persuasive language.
• Michelle Ruberg: Handbook of Magazine Article Writing: This is on my list because this is closest to the kind of writing I do, and the direction my own career is heading in. Covers the nuts and bolts of coming up with ideas, pitching stories, and working with editors, as well as the steps to research and write a compelling article (most of which would apply to any non-fiction writing).
• Philip Martin: The New Writer’s Handbook (2007): A collection of articles all offering practical advice on everything from tracking your writing goals to brainstorming ideas to building your author’s website. There are articles about every possible kind of writing in here, which means plenty for everyone.

You’ll notice the absence of Elements of Style. I own it, of course, but I find that I almost never open it – and have never just sat down with it and soaked it all in. Your mileage may vary, of course – Stephen King swears by it, and will lay a curse on any writer so full of pride as to not own a copy (I just squeak in under the wire on that one!), so it’s probably worth your while to at least have a copy. I just can’t promise you’ll learn much from it.

Blogging

I’ve been pretty vocal about why writers should blog, but in this context, the important thing is that blogging a) gives you a regular outlet to practice writing, b) puts work (potentially) in front of an audience and therefore invites feedback, and c) helps build your “platform”, that collection of marketable qualities that make up your salability as a writer. (I’ll talk more about platform later in this series.)

The Passion Test

One of the side-benefits of investing time and energy into improving your writing is that it functions as a kind of self-test of your passion for writing. This is important because, contrary to our idealistic desires, a lot of writing is a deadly slog through idea-less wastelands. If you’re going to do commercial or journalistic writing, you’ll find yourself writing about topics you could not care less about – and it had better be scintillating prose. If you’re going to write novels or non-fiction books, there will come a day when you absolutely do not care one whit about what happens next.

What’s more, while you might have plenty of ideas right now, you’ll use them up – and without passion, it can be damned hard to come up with new ones. Even worse, you’ll find that the ideas you do have simply don’t interest you any more.

Then there’s all the dull-work. Oh, yeah, it’s not all martinis and nymphomaniac fans in the writing world. There’s a lot of bookkeeping, doing taxes, filing, networking, filling out obscure paperwork (non-disclosure agreements, publication contacts, image licenses, etc.), legal mumbo-jumbo, and so on – all the stuff that you probably thought you were escaping by becoming a “creative person”. Oh, no no no – in fact, given a writer’s income and lack of institutional support, you are probably going  o be doing more business stuff than any business person you know. And if you don’t have a real passion for the writing, for the whole kit-and-kaboodle of the writing life beyond the simple act of putting word to paper, you won’t make it.

Next time: Breaking into the writing world.

I’m going to write this post in 20 minutes.

Being able to write fast is a crucial skill for writers of every stripe, especially freelancers who work to order, often under tight deadlines, as well as journalists trying to get a scoop. Bloggers, too, can benefit from writing fast, so they can move on to the writing that pays the bills, advances their careers, or satisfies their muse.

The key to writing fast is turning off your internal editor, that little voice in your head that tells you when a sentence or choice of words sucks. You have to fight that painful urge to go back and correct what you’ve just written, to fix the typos, or to pick just the right word, every single time. 

This boils down to a matter of trust — trust in yourself. You have to know that when you’re done madly drafting your piece, you’ll go back and fix things up. The important part is getting something to work with on the screen or on paper. Your writerly instinct is as much an editorial instinct as anything else — by separating the act of getting thoughts out of your head and shaping them into a finished, publishable piece, you can save a lot of time as your brain stays “locked in” on one task or the other, instead of split between both.

Here are my tips for writing quickly:

1. Have a plan.

An outline is a good start, but for shorter pieces (and even longer pieces if you just aren’t the kind of writer who outlines) just having a good idea of what you want to say before you start writing is going to shave plenty of time off your writing. A good capture strategy is key, too — get ideas down as they occur to you, flesh them out whenever you have a minute or two, and be ready to go when you sit down to write.

2. Have a formula.

I write a ton of blog posts, between Lifehack and The Writer’s Technology Companion and a bunch of other sites I contribute to as a guest. I also write a lot of articles for mainstream and trade outlets. For each of them, I’ve developed a kind of formula — not a fixed, immutable template, but a general set of rules I follow. Like the numbered, sub-headed list (this article, for example) — having this pattern in my head means I don’t have to think about how to move from one point to the next when I’m actually writing.

3. Don’t stop for ignorance.

Write what you know. And BS what you don’t know — at least in your draft. I do this all the time when I’m writing up pieces based on interviews with sources — instead of scrubbing back and forth through my recording of the interview, referring back to my notes, or (god forbid) writing a transcript, I just make up quotes that seem kind of like what they said, and that fit the point I’m making. Then I go back and replace my made-up quotes with actual quotes from my intereview. 

If you don’t know a fact or date or name, just insert XXX or [EXPERT’S NAME] or [SECTION ON FISHING] wherever you’re stuck or need further research, and come back to it later. I like to highlight those sections in yellow to make them easier to find.

 4. Kill distractions. 

This is self-explanatory — if you’re going to write fast, you can’t stop to do anything else. Find a quiet place, put on your most glowering face (to scare off those who would dare interrupt you), and get to work,  Put on a little music if it drowns out other noises or helps you stay focused, but otherwise make sure there’s nothing going on that might catch your attention. You need it all for your writing.

5. Set a timer. 

I have a timer running on my PC right now, set to 20 minutes. That keeps me on my toes — writing this is a race with the timer. It also keeps me motivated — I know the timer will go off if I stop, so I need to just keep going. A lot of writers claim to write best when they’re up against a deadline — setting a timer creates your own deadline, not a day or two from now but in 20 minutes or so. GO GO GO!

6. Use tools you know.

While I’m the last person in the world who would suggest you never look at new tools, when time is of the essence, use the tools you know well and are comfortable using. Don’t waste time trying to figure out how to make italics or boldface text, or how to double-indent or single-space a quotation, when you’re trying to write fast. Just fire up your Trusty Old Friend (for me, it’s the simplicity of Google Docs) and write. Save the experimentation for when you have a little leisure time to work

Well, there you go — I’ve got over 5 minutes left on the stopwatch (as of the beginning of this sentence) and what I think is a pretty nice article. I’ll go back, fix up the formatting, correct any typos or poor grammar, make sure I expressed myself clearly, and cut and paste this into my site. The end. 

(Word count: 883; Total time: 16:05 mins)

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While researching an article about iPhones, I was contacted by Cheryl Kaye Tardif, best-selling author of numerous novels such as Whale Song. Tardif has embarked on a new project: writing a complete novel on her iPhone – the first major mainstream author to do so.

I kind of stumbled onto this by accident. One night while watching TV I was inspired by an idea for a new novel; I’m a bestselling suspense author with 3 published novels.

This new novel idea hit hard and fast and I didn’t want to lose one thought, so I reached for my iPhone 3G, which at the time I’d had for a week or so. Opening the Notes application for the first time, I started typing in my ideas. This led to opening a new file in Notes and actually writing the first paragraph or two of the novel.

Then I discovered I could email my Notes to myself. I did this and later that evening after the TV show I was watching was over, I rushed upstairs and opened the email on my PC. Copy and paste brought it into an MS Word doc, and ta-da! I’d officially started a new novel.

The novel, Finding Bliss, is still in the “fermenting” stage, says Tardif – she’s wrapping up another novel to send to the publisher, and editing another that’s due to come out soon. But she’s excited about doing this.

My first question, of course, was “why”?” I mean, I’m a big techie (of course) and I’ve written quite a bit on similar devices like my trusty old Palm IIIe, but the thought of tapping out 80,000 words or so on the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard fills me with dread!

Tardif gives several reasons for undertaking such a big project on such a small device. First, there’s the convenience. “This is huge for me,” she says, “since I am struck with ideas virtually anywhere, any time.”

Second, she finds the immediacy of the iPhone fits the topic of the novel quite well. “Finding Bliss is told in first person, from the perspective of Bliss Morgan, a damaged teenage girl who must fight to survive in a world of abuse, lies and loss. It will read almost as a diary, and writing my thoughts down when I get them is key.”

But most importantly, she says, writing a novel on an iPhone is great publicity. “To be honest, writing Finding Bliss in this way makes this novel unique, intriguing, and very pitchable to a publisher and sponsors.” Before you dismiss that as shallow, opportunistic, or overly commercial, remember that we live in an attention economy, and writers are not just expected but required to bring with their manuscripts a willingness to market their work and the savvy-ness to do it well. There is a special term for authors who aren’t willing to go the extra mile to capture the public’s attention: “unpublished”.

Tardif has found a great way to distinguish herself from the pack, and the public (and publishers) are paying attention. She’s been featured in several newspapers, and been contacted by retailers and websites looking to arrange exclusive releases of her finished book – and she’s only two chapters in!

Tardif offers this advice for authors looking to use their iPhones to write on:

Writing a novel on a small device like the iPhone 3G requires a fair amount of patience. There’s also a learning curve with the phone, so writers attempting this have to be willing to take their time. This probably won’t be a novel that’s written in 4 months.

I think that anyone attempting this should understand why they want to write this way. Are there advantages? Do the advantages outweigh the restrictions? Keep in mind, there is little room to edit, and certainly major editing would be done once converted into the Word doc.

More importantly, she sets a great example for writers looking for creative ways to promote themselves and their work. It hasn’t all been done before, but you’ve got to be willing to do whatever it takes to get yourself noticed. “Let’s face it,” she told me, “every author needs to get noticed if they want to succeed, especially fiction authors. And I plan to succeed! ”

Good advice!

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One of the profound ironies about writing a site about being a productive, efficient writer is that the better I am at what I write about, the less time I have to write about it. The last couple of months I’ve been getting more work than ever, even while I struggled to deal with a difficult semester (my day job is teaching anthropology and gender studies to college students) and an even more difficult break-up and move.

My guest writers helped a lot – Aaron Peters, Kelly Kilpatrick, and Stephanie Stiavetti stepped in to take some of the load off as I got moved and then buried under end-of-the-semester grading, and I’m immensely grateful to them all. It’s been fun having guest writers on the site, and I’m definitely up for more.

The Writer’s Technology Companion has changed quite a bit since I started it. When I launched the site last March, I thought I would be primarily reviewing software and writing how-tos. Those kind of posts have been common on the site, of course, but I find that the ones I enjoy writing the most are the ones about being a more productive writer, and so that will be a bigger focus in the year to come. These posts take quite a bit longer to write, especially since – as anyone who follows my work at Lifehack will have seen – I’m struggling mightily with the notion of “productivity” and how to integrate efficiency, meaning, and passion in our lives. But I think it’s a worthwhile pursuit, even if it means slightly longer gaps between posts here.

To help fill some of those gaps, I’m going to try to do regular posts bringing together some of the best posts around the Internet on writing. I come across tons of great stuff out there, and it’s time I start sharing with my readers. Now, as a general rule, I hate link posts, so my promise to you is that I’ll never post just a set of links; I’ll always make an effort to bring some kind of value to the material I’m linking to, so that even if you never click a link, you’ll walk away with something useful.

Since goals and resolutions are on everyone’s mind as we move into the new year, I thought I’d start by sharing with you some of the great posts I’ve come across on that theme.

Better Resolutions for Writers

No-Fail Freelance Resolutions: How To Succeed in 2009: Jenny Cromie offers some great advice for setting writing goals for the new year. Especially welcome is her emphasis on spending some time to know yourself as a writer – check your commitment level and learn what motivates you now, so you’re ready when the writing flags and just about anything else seems preferable to working towards your goals.

“He shoots…he scores!” (or, writing goals): Jane of Seven angels, four kids, one family offers a crucial piece of advice to writers setting goals for 2009: focus on things you actually have control over. You can write the greatest work ever and the most stunning queries of all time, but in the end you cannot control whether your book gets published. “Get book published” might be setting yourself up to fail; “Submit manuscript/proposal to one publisher or agent every month this year” is  something you can make sure happens.

Writing Goals and New Year’s Resolutions Tips for Writers: Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen offers her take on writers’ resolutions for the new year. with a special emphasis on financial goals. Writers often ignore finances (which makes us especially easy to take advantage of, unfortunately) – if you want to make writing your life’s work, though, you’ve got to take the money side seriously.

Stress Relief for Writers: Four Ways to Achieve Your Writing Goals: Angela Booth tells writers to relax – and provides some strategies for doing so. Though many writers seem to thrive on chaos and deadlines, the reality is that our minds think and work best when they’re at peace. Clear your mind and let the ideas flow!

47 Ways Copyblogger Can Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions: Although this is primarily a “sneeze post” for Copyblogger (a “sneeze post” is a post written primarily to direct you to other work in the site’s archive – it’s a good traffic generating tool, but typically not especially exciting content), Sonia Simone provides lots of good advice for writers in between the links to other Copyblogger posts. And, to be honest, you can do a lot worse for yourself than to spend some time with Copyblogger’s usually excellent writing posts.

Top 10 Resolutions for Writers: A simple, to-the-point overview of the ten resolutions that should top a writer’s list of resolutions.

Ten health hazards for writers: Writing seems like a pretty safe work option, compared to say driving the ice roads of the Arctic or doing humanitarian relief work in a warzone, but it’s not without its own particular on-the-job hazards. Tumblemoose Writing Productions offers tips for avoiding 10 health risks that can stop your writing in its tracks. Don’t fall short of your goals because you’re too sick or injured to write!

And don’t forget my own post, How to Set SMART Writing Goals, which isn’t about resolutions per se but which has plenty to say about setting goals that work.

Why do you do NaNoWriMo? What benefits have you gotten from your participation?

I  signed up for NaNoWriMo to because I’m the eternal procrastinator but I tend to respond well to watching pretty graphs grow and feeling that other people could be watching me. Although I didn’t participate in the forums a lot last year, I read what a lot of other people were talking about and felt like I was part of something much bigger than just me and my computer in a small room in Perth.
The biggest benefit was learning that I *can* write a lot, when I have to. Since then I’ve been able to push myself a bit more because I know that back in November I wrote 50,000 words in less than a month.

How did you keep yourself inspired and motivated during NaNoWriMo?

A month is a short enough time (for me) that I could keep myself motivated mostly by wanting to be able to see the bars on my daily word count graph get higher. Obviously this wouldn’t work long term, but for a month it’s possible, and that kept me motivated. Also, I told quite a few people that I was taking part (and blogged about) so I didn’t want to have to admit defeat.

As for being inspired, that was surprisingly easy but if I got a bit uninspired I would browse the forums and see what kinds of titles other people had for their novels and how many words they’d written.

What sort of planning, if any, are you doing this year before you start writing?

I’m doing much more planning this year. Last year I didn’t plan at all, really, and while I still managed to get plenty written, the rewriting is an ongoing nightmare and I’ve had to throw a lot out. So this year I am getting much more detailed with chapter outlines etc — but only for the first 3/4 of the novel, the ending is still a mystery to me. That’s largely because I can’t quite figure out what the characters will really do, and because I think that’s a good way to write — let them decide for me. I think if I knew the entire story first I might not be interested enough to write it.

What are some of the tools you use to keep yourself organized and on-track during NaNoWriMo? How do you use them?

Nothing too fancy, but the graph included in your NaNoWriMo profile page was a godsend. Loved it. I did also (geekily) use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of how many words I needed to finish each day to stay on target (depending on how many I’d already written — this number often varied).

How do you manage your time during NaNoWriMo to make time for writing?

Badly. And I became a social hermit, spending several weekends locked in front of the computer.

What advice do you have for other writers doing NaNoWriMo for the first time?

Try to plan a structure for your novel even if you feel resistant to this idea.
Write extra (more than the daily target) for the first week or two so that the second week or two are easier.

Always stop writing in the middle of something you’re enjoying so it’s easy to start again.

Don’t worry if some of what you write is drivel, it is quantity not quality at this point.

Why do you do NaNoWriMo? What benefits have you gotten from your participation?

Even though I’m usually founding ranting/raving about everything but the written word, I’m really a writer at heart. November is my excuse to sit with my laptop for hours on end, typing away at something that will never be read, never edited, never criticized — writing just for the hell of it. I tend to write about real frustrations and then there are the zombies, flying alligators and super heroes that keep me sane in my daily endeavors.

How did you keep yourself inspired and motivated during NaNoWriMo?

I complain a lot. To everyone. This is my fifth year participating (and winning) … I’ve lost a lot of friends.

What sort of planning, if any, are you doing this year before you start writing?

None. I usually jump in fresh, without guidelines. It’s easier for me to up word counts when I’m not focused on strict plot paths and whatnot. I’d rather kill a character. Bring him back. Kill him again. Then bring him back as an undead antihero before making NaNoWriMo more than the chore it is.

What are some of the tools you use to keep yourself organized and on-track during NaNoWriMo? How do you use them?

A partner in suffering. My NaNoWriMo buddy and I write for 30 minutes at a time, pausing in between to read our stuff (crap), rest, smoke cigarettes, watch TV and gear up for the next 30-minute sprint. We help each other think up plot twists, character development, raunchy dialogue, etc.

What advice do you have for other writers doing NaNoWriMo for the first time?

1. Don’t care: Ignore typos, run-ons, incomprehensible ramblings. If you get too caught up in the nuances of decent prose, you’ll never make it to 50,000 words.

2. Cheat: It’s “sweat shop,” not “sweatshop” — “tear drop” not “teardrop.” Name your protagonist ‘Flaming Kelly Action Bot the Third’ (that’s six words, plenty more with repeats!).

3. Back up your files: Save a copy to your Gmail, your blog, your desktop every thousand words in. Never rely on a flash drive.

Comparison

Before we start, let’s figure out what each of these things does well, or at least better than the other.

Desktop:

• On a desktop, the wide screen is clearly the biggest advantage.
• Also, the keyboard is likely to be better than the one on the netbook (unless you’re using an HP Mini).
• Graphics– and animation-intensive applications and/or web pages are likely to run better on the improved horsepower of the desktop.

Netbook:

• Although the desktop is bound to have more storage, there is something to be said for keeping certain types of information in one place. For example, I keep my tree-based note-taking application (BasKet, more on this later) exclusively on the Wind.
• I also find it easy to really focus on a particular task when working on the Wind. Perhaps it’s because of the small screen size, and therefore the fact that I can’t have multiple windows open with lots of lights and whistles going off.

Linux Toolset

So, based on this assessment, I came to the conclusion that I wanted some type of set-up that would allow me to access both the desktop and the Wind at the same time. Here’s the tools I use to do just that:

• SSH/SFTP: The Secure SHell, or SSH, is one of my most used applications. I use it to remote into the desktop (which functions for me largely as a server as well) to perform maintenance, install new software, and (via the Secure FTP compatibility), move files back and forth between the two machines. Lastly, SSH will allow me to open an application that’s only installed on the Wind on the display for the desktop. For example, I have the Quanta web IDE installed on the Wind, but I can open it on the desktop through an SSH tunnel.
• SVN: Where I’ll use SFTP for a one-off movement of files, when keeping all of my “working files” organized, I use the version control system called Subversion. Originally designed for managing code, it works very well as a simple-to-set-up document management system. Additionally, it also works through an SSH tunnel, so I can securely access files on my home desktop anywhere there’s Internet access.
• x2x: Finally, possibly the most useful tool in my arsenal is x2x. This “software KVM” allows you to share a keyboard and mouse between two machines with two separate displays (so, I guess it’s really a software “KM”). The effect of this is that I can use the desktop keyboard, and when I move the cursor past the bottom of the screen, control “jumps” to the Wind, and I can use the larger keyboard and mouse to work there.

Based on the above, here’s how I generally use the two machines together.

• I leave my e-mail client and IM window open and tiled on the Wind. Using the smaller screen is useful for things that you need to monitor, such as e-mail, IM, or RSS/news feeds.
• I’ll open non-processor-intensive applications such as text editors/word processors remotely from the desktop (i.e. open the copy of the application that’s installed on the Wind so that it displays on the larger screen of the desktop).
• Twice per day (usually, the start and end of the day) I’ll sync (in SVN parlance, “update” and/or “commit”) changes to files on the Wind into the SVN repository.
• I open windows such as web pages that I’m reading in-depth and development apps on the desktop.

With these two machines connected via the tools above, I have a very functional set-up when sitting at the desk that allows me to unhook the Wind with a minimum of fuss. Drafting on the go and doing layout/coding when “docked” has become my preferred method for working. With the Linux toolset, it’s easy!

Why do you do NaNoWriMo?

I did NaNoWriMo last year on a whim. A couple of friends on a forum I frequent were doing it, so I decided to give it a try too. I had not been writing much as of late, and I thought it might be the kick in the pants I needed. It worked out so well that I decided to do it again this year.

What benefits have you gotten from your participation?

I was right, it was the kick in the pants I needed. I already had a story idea, and NaNo both got me started, and kept me going.

How did you keep yourself inspired and motivated during NaNoWriMo?

I had the luxury of having well developed characters from previous stories I had written. I already had a seed of a story in mind. So, once I decided I was going to do it I sat down and developed a detailed outline and a detailed setting, complete with maps. With those in hand, the story almost wrote itself.

What sort of planning, if any, are you doing this year before you start writing?

I am doing another mystery this year, but not with the same detective or area. Last year’s story was with a private detective in South Carolina, a guy I had written a lot about. This year I’m using a Police Detective in St. Louis. So I have to do a lot of research in just how the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department works, and how it interacts with the Major Case Squad. I am working up my outline now, so I hope to be ready to go at the starting gun. I’m from St. Louis, so at least this time I won’t have to do a lot of geographic research.

What are some of the tools you use to keep yourself organized and on-track during NaNoWriMo? How do you use them?

I don’t know that I use a lot of tools, other than the outline, maps, and the Internet. Of course, I have my favorite bookmarks.

How do you manage your time during NaNoWriMo to make time for writing?

I generally write at night, after dinner. If I’m in the flow, I just lose track of time until I realize it’s time for bed. I have a day job, so I can’t ignore that. When I’m writing, my family generally leaves me to it, so I have very few distractions.

What advice do you have for other writers doing NaNoWriMo for the first time?

Start out with a plot, not just a vague idea of a story. In other words, know where you are going and why you (your characters) are going there. Some people don’t like outlines, but if you can work with one, develop a detailed outline before the start date. But don’t be afraid to deviate from the outline. Sometimes good stuff just happens.