Keeping Organized and a bit about File Naming **Updated**

   Hi all! Today’s topic comes from a question posted by a new member on FWO; a fiction writer’s site I belong to.

   “Does anyone have any tips on organizing my notes?” (I’m paraphrasing)

   Well we all have our own ways and our own methods of attempting to organize the creativity oozing from between our ears. A lot of us carry around laptops or tablets these days. But, even with the ever changing, more and more portable, highly interactive computing devices available in our world - even right down to our phones - nothing seems to be as popular as good old fashioned pen and paper when it comes to fiction writers. So what does that mean? That means that most of us have shelves, boxes, bins, even closets full of these processed trees. If you’re working on one, maybe two projects at once that’s usually not a problem to keep these organized as carrying two notebooks and switching between them when necessary isn’t too difficult. But if that was your situation you wouldn’t be asking; “How do I keep organized,” now would you?

No Summer Vacation

     Hello all! I'm sorry I have been absent a lot lately. I have been tackling a lot of new things this year. From building my Print and Design company Print Muses, learning the tricks of that trade, realizing and researching the improvement needs of my resources for a large part of the extensions of my writing, as well as looking at Kickstarter - hopefully there will be news on that soon - and learning about that. All while trying to maintain some decent contact with my family. So I've been a busy, busy bee.

     I have had time, though, to complete My Creative Writing Tools. Find out in my next post!!!

NaNoWrimo - BUST ... Prioritizing and Support

    Well, I started out with the best of intentions, but November was just that; NO-vember. This was actually the first year that I have participated in NaNoWriMo where I did not reach my goal. A lot got done this month, yet nothing at all and very, very little actual writing. Most of the month was taken up by the one-turned-three week project that was the forced re-carpeting of our condo. Followed promptly by several separate invasions of 6 legged critters of the black ant persuasion - which in the 18 years of being in this house has only happened 6 times before and on much smaller scale, which has eaten up most of the days in-between. (We still haven't figured out why they decided, now that the place is the best it's looked in the last 6 years, that NOW was the time. No rain, not terribly cold or hot. No logical reason.) Still what writing (and writing related tasks) that did get done had significant impact and I feel that if priority had been given to NaNoWriMo (as in the past) and had I had the support to make that happen there was the potential for this to be the most productive NaNoWriMo EVER for me. But that did not happen and thus the subject of this post. So why?

NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month

Hi all!

    Again I apologize for my absence but that little thing called life keeps getting in my way. Like the fact that our incredibly full house is being re-carpeted, painted outside, getting a new garage door, and a few other things. Timing couldn't be WORSE, the hubby's job is giving him grief for some personal illness issues, my work comp issue is flaring and I'm playing a game of hurry up and wait with the company and lawyers. But the timing though isn't ours to call - ah the joys of renting. But I can tell you that I am working on 20 new articles as I attempt to accomplish some of my personal goals. And speaking of personal goals, this month is National Novel Writing Month - 30 days, 50,000 words; sponsored by NaNoWriMo Organization. Which I have participated in (officially or non-officially for the last 6 years) and I will be participating again this year.

Away a Spell

    My dear readers, I do not wish you to think that I have forgotten this blog or you. I just have been otherwise 'employed.' Over the last few weeks I have  been doing a bit of print and web design for a friend's start-up business while doing research and working on my timeline.

    The timeline itself has taken a lot of work to find a viable solution - the trials of which I have been putting into an article I hope to have published soon. There are so many ways of doing what you want and need in this day that extensive exploration becomes necessity. My hope as always that in cataloging my explorations that I will help save you some of the time that I've spent and help speed along your process.

    Through my dabbling with the design work I have been downloading new programs that are part of the Adobe Cloud service that my husband and I have, and I found a program that has little to do with art design in these resources. I will be exploring this new piece of software in a upcoming post, as soon as I'm done familiarizing myself with it.

    With that I must get back to these projects.

Base Repository Complete; the Crossroads - and Projects Update

Accomplished - Since 07/04/12

• Base Repository Completed

Well it's not as clean as I wanted it to be but it is done. I was down to my last two story series files, the corner stones if you will of the master series - yes I'm one of those sick David-Eddings-type people who not only writes within a "universe" but series within series, sometimes within series - and I realized that to whittle down those files any further it would mean me starting the writing process. So here I am standing on the threshold of where I've wanted to be for the last 4 years. I have so many directions I can go now. Where do I go now?

Projects - Progress and Goals 06.08.12

Accomplished - Since 05/12/12

• Setting up files for Base Repository
• Posts:
• Back It Up! Part Two - a tale of almost woe.
• The Birth of a Book - Blog post share
• The wand which weaves; My Favorite Pen
• Started learning Git

Goals - 06/08/12

• Setting up Base Repository
• Looking into Visual Version Control

The wand which weaves; My Favorite Pen

"Art thou a pen, Whose task shall be

To drown in ink What writer's think?

Oh, wisely write, That pages white

Be not the worse for ink and thee."

~ Ethel Lynn Beers~

    For centuries writers have put pen to paper - or parchment - weaving their "webs of words" to enchant their audiences. I cannot speak for anyone else, but every once-in-a-while I have to get away from the computers, the tablets, the phones and put pen to paper; to let the ink flow. When it's easier to paint pictures with words with the feel of my favorite "brush" in hand whispering softly across my writer's canvas instead of the clack-clack of the keys beneath my fingertips. There is something about the journey an idea takes from knocking around in my head, down my arm and into my fingertips - whether the words flow in a gentle cursive or burst forth in a flurry of print and shorthand - and in that moment an idea can become a tangible thing. It is at those times that I find myself so completely immersed in the experience that the words and pages disappear. Almost as if the pen cradled between my fingers were but a vessel for an entity entirely of its own, the story reveals itself. I treasure those moments.

    Throughout time there has been much praise and homage paid to the virtues of the pen. One of the most familiar quotes being "The Pen is mightier than the Sword" coined around the year 1839, by English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The quote comes from Act II, Scene II of his play Richelieu (liberally based on Cardinal Richelieu);

"True, This - Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanter's wand! - itself a nothing! -
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Ceasars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! - Take away the sword -
States can be saved without it."

Famous playwrite William Shakespeare wrote in a similar vein in reference to the tool of the scribe in Act II, Scene II of his classic tragedy Hamlet:

"... many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequils."

But it is not only classic writers who have commented on the worthiness of the hand written word and it's instrument. Even in these modern times Irish author and journalist, Clare Boylan, noted this:

"Some writers have a personal love affair with particular pens. Others do not give a blot what comes to hand so long as it is stick-shaped, silent, and able to make its mark. I was surprised to discover about 70 percent of writers still write full manuscripts by hand." - Clare Boylan

And it is in the spirit of this assertion that we continue on. Now, I happen to be one of those former writers that Clare Boylan mentions, and over the years my writing tool has changed. In this article I'm going to cover several tools that I have used over the years and why. Maybe it will help you find a favorite writing utensil, or maybe it will simply entertain you that a writer can be surprisingly neurotic about something so seemingly trivial.

File Comparison Tools

    So I'm taking a break from comparing files to talk blog about File Comparison tools. I've been using Compare It! for the last year. But in the interest of keeping current I have done some research into what is currently out there in the world of file comparison tools.

    First let's talk about why you would need a file comparison tool. Well one is if you fall into a situation like mine where you have dozens (or more) copies of files with the same name, some could be corrupt, some could be altogether different, and some could just simply be duplicate. But how do you know? There are several visual cues you could try to judge on without even opening the file; the number that's been attached to the file by your computer, the creation or modification dates, the file size. Still not any one of those can be a guarantee that the files are the same or different though they increase the chances the more things that you compare. The more important the contents of that file more sure you will want to be.

    Okay, so how can you be even more sure? Well if you use Microsoft Office you can do side by side comparisons and scroll through the files and HOPE that your eyes catch any minor differences. Like when in your third pass though you finally noticed that the line that you wrote in the first draft still had your heroine's eyes listed as green when her eyes being blue turned out to be imperative or where you'd dropped a letter in a word completely changing the meaning of that line; this mistake was hard enough to spot the first time but do you even remember making it so that you know to look for it now. If you are comparing files by size a change this small might not even change the BITES of the file let alone register at the KB level (which is what that column usually shows), you could compare the modified/created date but if your files have been "recovered" that data could be changed. You could do what I did prior to finding file comparison tools; print out the files and go word by word - or if you have those kind of friends, recruit people to help. It does work, I have several friends who can attest to it. We found such mistakes in two seemingly identical files of a script I wrote. But if it's more than a couple of files you're going to spend a lot of money on wasting paper, ink and time. So believe me when I say; finding a file comparison tool that's right for you is VITAL!

    I have played with several and I even have different programs to sort through image files and music files (my Doc folder wasn't the only victim of the Geek Squad screw up). One thing I encourage is if you can go free - do so, especially when trying out software. You also need to learn what works for you. A lot of the reason why there are so many programs that do the same thing out there has a lot to do with ascetics, as well as the little things. I personally am partial to a clean simple look when it comes to this kind of software. I also don't want to have to look at the comparison data myself to determine if they are identical - that's why I have the software right? The basics that you are looking for in a File comparison program are as follows:

• Compares several kinds of files (e.g. .doc, .xls, .html, .pdf)
• Compares the source and file names
• Compares the file size
• and most importantly Compares CONTENT! This can be your most useful tool down the line for many reasons including version control. (Which we will discuss in a different post)

    So let's look at what's out there.

• Compare It! 4.2

As I said before I use Compare It! this program has has a free trial version that works just fine, but you can also pay for the full version. I like because when it does find differences it shows them in a side by side view and highlights what and where the changes are. If the files are the same it says so in a nifty little box message at the completion of the comparison - so easy so you can just move forward. And after playing with several other

• WinMerge 2.12.4

This only works with Windows. It has the old Windows 95 look and feel. I'm holding out to try their WinMerge 3 which promises to be a significant improvement. But Apple/Mac users you're out of luck here. It seems to have a similar system as Compare It! (The OS X answer to this is FileMerge, I don't use Apple/Mac PCs so I can't comment on that program.)

• ExamDiff 1.9

This program is like Compare It! in that it has a free trial download and a Pro (paid) version. I downloaded the freeware version and it looks nice. What they don't tell you right off is that after a little bit the program will bug you every 15 minutes to upgrade to Pro this alone turns me off to the program. But if you don't mind the interruption this could be a good option for you. That being said the pro version looks very complete, if you are thinking of paying for your compare app this is a good contender along side Compare It!

• WinDiff

From what I've read about it; Don't Bother! But if you want to test it that's up to you.

• DiffDoc

The specs look great. And again it has the free trial and paid versions. Though I couldn't find the paid version to save my life. One of the bonuses to this program is that you can compare portions of files and customize what you do and don't want to ignore in searches. This tool looks to be really useful in helping with version control. It's not my favorite for plowing through large numbers of files though.

• CompareMyFiles.com

If you don't want to download a file comparison tool and you only have a few files to compare this online "service" seems to be your best bet.


    All the other programs I looked into were either 30 day trials or paid software. You are more than welcome to look into those if you wish. But then again you can also pay someone else to compare your files for you as well.

    If you want to do your own research on File comparison tools I suggest looking at this Wikipedia article and doing a Google or Bing Search. I also found this article but for most writers this is a little over the head.

    Good luck!