Photo of the Week

I know the photo is blurry – I was taking it on my way to work, in case something happened to them (they’re still there – yay!). These little violets (violas?) are blooming away in the deconstructed concrete walk. No care on our part – they’re just doing what they do. Sometimes nature does best when left alone.

Fallible Tech

It’s a bit ironic that after writing about AI tools for the past couple of weeks, and how much I enjoy working with technological aids, that the Dragon/Nuance servers were down shortly after when I tried to get into the program so I could transfer my dictation file for that day to my laptop. A good reminder that technology is fallible, and also good motivation to figure out how to get to my transcription files on my phone when the actual app isn’t working.

I experienced another issue with technology in the past couple of weeks when Workflowy, which is the cloud note-taking software I use for…well everything (including writing blog posts), became unusable in one of the places I use it most. After trying and failing to get it fixed, I started wondering what I could use instead, and remembered my Evernote account (est. July 1, 2011). I stopped using Evernote around 2017/2018 when they made some changes to the user interface that I not only didn’t like, but the whole thing was just sloggy and frustrating to use. But I kept paying my yearly subscription, because I was too lazy to move all my notes from Evernote to Workflowy (or any of the other myriad note applications I tried between them…I’m a bit of a junky for organizing software). I occasionally log in to get a piece of info I needed, and then logged out and forgot about it again until I needed something stored there.

Cue technical issues, and Evernote is one of those programs I can use anywhere, so, I reset my password and logged back in.  It not only still works everywhere I need it to, but the UI problems have been fixed, it’s much more intuitive again, it’s not slow or sloggy, and it has a ton of new (to me) features that look like they could be really helpful (one of which I already played with).

So, I’m seriously considering moving all my stuff from Workflowy into Evernote, canceling that subscription, and consolidating once again. Evernote is far more robust, and while I don’t need even half of the features, it would now be an upgrade to move back. They even have templates for writers now – story beat outlines, character and plotting sheets, outlining templates…there’s a whole host of writerly things and task management functions I look forward to checking out.

And that’s how technology goes. Something works great for awhile, and then it doesn’t, or there’s something better, and sometimes you end up where you started, and sometimes you just move on for good. I’ve found with tech, it’s pretty imperative not to hold on too tightly to any one program, and to be ready to change if something better or more useful comes along. Though that’s from the person who’s been paying for a bit of software she didn’t really use for the last…5 years or so, so…grain of salt and all that.

Do you use online note-keeping and/or organizational software? What’s your favorite at the moment?

Writing News

I’ve decided I’ve been far too lenient on myself lately. I’ve been giving myself a lot of leeway for things like busy workdays, tired days, stressed days, etc. You name it, I use it as an excuse for not making progress. Running late, weather, fireworks, no time…I’m pretty sure I’ve used every single one of those as an excuse in the last month or so.

No more. It doesn’t matter how busy/late/tired/stressed I am, it takes less than 15 minutes to write 150 words if I’m typing, and dictating it’s less than 5 minutes. There is no excuse for me not to write at least 150 words per day. So, that’s the goal from here on out. 150 words every weekday, no matter what. I wrote my whole first novel in a year doing 250 words per day, but now, I know if I write a minimum of 150, odds are good that on most days, I’ll just keep going until I have a good 500 words or more. So it’s the start I need these days. And some days, that’s all I’ll get, with life intruding from all sides. But as long as I’m making some sort of progress and keeping that thread of connection to my WIPs, that’s all that matters.

I set that goal on Wednesday of last week, and so far, have met the minimum every weekday. Not bad, I’d say. Just gotta kick my own butt into gear, and keep up with the tiny streak I’ve started.

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