Keep Writing

A paper notebook small enough to fit in my jacket pocket, and so that I can carry anywhere.

I can cross things out, I don't have to futz with software worrying about making it look pretty.

I can scrawl, and draw crudely the visions that I'm trying to capture, again without worrying about how exactly to use the software tools.

If I'm having trouble getting started, I start drawing circles on a page, anything to get my pen moving.

If I want to move a paragraph or sentence somewhere else, I circle it, and draw an arrow to where I want it to go.

Editing and putting it into a word processor comes later.

Just get the damned words out of my head.

I am using LibreOffice these days for a word processing.

I am a terrible writer that does it purely for my own edification.

I use spiral bound notebooks with the coil at the top and whatever pen.

Every night I try to write one page.

Sometimes it's a scene that advances the story or shows something about a character.

Sometimes it's a history of some faction or region, or an anecdote that the characters know from their past, or maybe a note about politics or trade.

Occasionally, I'll write a character sketch or map and describe a location.

I just like writing and this way creates the least pressure on me to "write". It's just fun.

If I ever get a complete story I'll maybe type it into a document and try to edit it.

The last time I finished something was seven years ago. It was a short story. Wasn't great but I enjoyed the process. I've always got ideas going but this current work is a Yankee in King Arthur's Court type adventure that I'm really having fun with.

I use google docs. That way, whenver i have a note or phrase to add, i can add it. From phone, laptop, work pc, gaming pc, or my fridge.

I love Scivener

I just use Word, but so many people swear by Scrivener that I think I'm going to check it out.

I stick to strictly Markdown. because it's easier (for me) to convert to eBook, PDF, or website - or all three.

Depending on the platform, I use different Markdown editors. At the moment I'm using Markor on Android and VSCodium on Windows and Linux.

You don't need anything fancy, Imo. I just use LibreOffice

Bibisco & Manuskript are popular feature rich options.

Generally if you just want to write your thoughts using something logseq or trilium might be more what you want.

I recently switched over to using Campfire to do all my writing. Super helpful for keeping world building details and manuscripts all in one place.

Joplin. It's Markdown based, supporting math, tables, Mermaid diagrams, and more. You can organize notes into notebooks, including sub-notebooks, as well as with tags. The desktop app supports full text seach. And it has open-source apps for desktop and mobile, and it's easy to set up synchronization between all devices using standard cloud storage (I use free Dropbox), which is encrypted whenever it's not on your devices.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions! I have a lot to check out.

I'm over engineering the heck out of it. My editor is neovim, which I use for work and to write software too. I write markdown, but it's not just markdown.

My stuff is somewhat inspired by the SCP wiki in style, so I'm making it a website with fancy styling via CSS and so on, using Jekyll in the backend.

It's a lot of fun and I keep learning more about web dev stuff, but even though I spend a large part of my day today working on it, I hardly wrote any new content. But I have a fancy fake login form for classified data, nice colors and a search feature now.

Just in case, does anyone know a good markdown editor that with good integration for languagetool, or alternatively one that runs in the browser?