[W.F. Lantry]

Hey, folks,

I made a casual offhand comment about getting rid of Word, and some people have asked me about it. Instead of replying individually, I thought I'd put it up here. Of course, I've developed this to fit my unusual situation, but the method is flexible and customizable to individual needs.

In brief, I write everything on a distant site. When I'm done, I copy and paste the text into an email to Kate. Et Voila, all is saved in three places: her email, my outbox, and the original site. Easy, quick and simple.

More detail: if you go to wordpress.com, you can set up a free blog. It takes maybe five minutes. Make sure it's set to Private, and it's password protected. That way, no one else can see anything. You can even leave the address lying around, and no-one can get in... which is actually more secure than Word on your local machine.

Wordpress is very simple to use. If you get confused, it's easy to get detailed instructions. Example: google 'set wordpress blog to private.'

For an actual text editor, I use ultimate tinyMCE, but most people get along just fine with the default editor. It's clear and uncluttered.

There are many advantages to this method, beyond getting rid of word and saving in multiple places. If I'm browsing the web and find something that may be useful, I use the 'Press this' button and it auto-posts to the blog. I can post a snippet by email. I can even be walking in the forest, have a hint of an idea, and speak the phrase into my phone, and it autoposts in text to the blog. Not having to carry around those thoughts all the time is freedom itself.

Having it up online and available has saved my bacon many times at readings. If I want to change what I'm going to read, everything is available on my phone. If I'm reading something in the evening I wrote that afternoon, it's right there.

It's also convenient writing in a single interface: the web browser. In the old days, our desks were cluttered with books: thesauri, several dictionaries, reference texts, books of poems, you name it. Now, we can put all these things in tabs in a single browser: no more fumbling for books, flipping through pages, looking around, looking away from the actual work. It allows us to focus fully on composing. We don't even need to shell out, back and forth, to the slow to respond editor.

I suspect most of us do something like this already. Some will always prefer pencils. I used to be among them. But this method is far simpler.

Hope this helps,

Bill

[Ann Drysdale]

Not so much a different way to write as a different way to deal with the written. It sounds fearsomely logical, but I want to know about the "distant site" where the real stuff happens.

[Catherine Chandler]

Thanks, Bill. I'm going to give it a try.

[Roger Slater]

Sounds like a good method.

Instead of using Wordpress, though, you can also use Google Docs (or Google Drive, as it's now called). Your work is safe, and it even keeps many prior drafts in case you get nostalgic for that stanza you cut last week.

You can also use Dropbox, which gives you a folder that is located online and automatically synched with every computer in your life where you install the software. Works great with smartphones and tablets as well.

These solutions do not also give you the web clipping that Bill speaks of, but that's an entirely different feature. You could always go with Evernote, or something like it, which lets you clip and send notes, audio files, pictures and videos to your own online account.

But Bill did mention one great idea I'll be using. For now on, I'm going to email a copy of everything to Kate.

[Michael Cantor]

Oh, I've been e-mailing a copy of everything to Kate for years. I thought everybody did that. But she hasn't placed any poems for me yet. Not even in Bulgaria. It's been somewhat disappointing.

Neat approach, Bill, and I love the romance and mystery of posting on a "distant site", even if I'm not quite sure what it means. (I'm a Dropbox guy - as a matter of fact, I think that it was Roger who first called it to my attention, a few years ago - and it does me well.)