In this post, I’m going to eat a heaping dish of my old words. I happen to find it very funny.
Anyway, no reading today.
For data analysis, I sent over requirements for some enhancements to my dictation macro that will make it even stronger. Most of the changes are minor formatting things, but there are a few big items that will speed up my sessions. My programmer should have a draft by end of the week.
For marketing, I need to build pages on my website for Year of the Rat and The Chicago Rat Shifter. I’ll do that after I finish this post.
For production, I experimented with Atticus, the new writing app by Dave Chesson. I like it a lot but they still have a ways to go.
I also experimented with…………Microsoft Word’s writing app on iOS.
And actually, it’s surprisingly good. I don’t think I would have said that a few years ago. Microsoft has made some big improvements. The first is feature parity. You can do almost everything on the phone version that you can in the desktop app. The parity is surprisingly solid.
The user interface leaves a little to be desired, but I think it is a viable option for most people now, especially with autosave and OneDrive.
Anyway, I’ve actually been struggling a lot lately with my overall writing workflow. I currently use Scrivener iOS, which I like a lot, but it hasn’t been updated in a long time and there are features it desperately needs that, at the time of this writing, only Microsoft Word offers.
I’m thinking about switching back to Word as my main writing app.
Now, I have a unique use case. I use Word macros, so that requires my text to go through Word first after dictation. It doesn’t make any sense to dictate, use Word macros, import the text into Scrivener, export the text from Scrivener back to Word for my editor, and then port the text from Word into Vellum. I hate, hate, hate this workflow. (Another reason I was looking into Atticus—they’ve promised to solve this problem in the medium term, but they haven’t gotten to it yet).
If I use Word as my main writing app, it will condense the number of apps I use and make my workflow more efficient. I don’t love it, but I don’t love my current workflow either.
I don’t find myself using most of Scrivener’s features anymore now that I am dictating almost exclusively, so it’s not a real loss.
But I’m experimenting with this and will see how it goes. I may take a Microsoft Word course to improve my knowledge of the app. I’d consider myself to be an intermediate Word user, but if I switch to it, I’ll need to be advanced.
It’s funny how things come around. Ten years ago, I was beating my head against the wall with Word. Now, it’s welcoming me with open arms. #creepy
Anyhoo, I hit my word quota today. I’ll keep on crackalackin’.
Have a good night.
YTD Word Count: 124,350
Plan: 1,252,000
Words Over/-Under Plan: 22,600
Days Ahead/-Behind: 8.22
Projected Annual Word Count: 1,377,600
Projected Decade Word Count: 13,776,000
Deadline 12/31/2023
Days to Go Until 12/31/23: 454
Word Count Average: 3,361
Average Pulp Speed: 1.9
