Finding the Right Tool for the Job

In keeping with the two project theme this week, I’ll cover both bases for what I’ll be attempting to accomplish while on the road.

The first project, the writing, is actually pretty simple for me while traveling. I do most of my creative writing within Ulysses. It has just enough organization to keep my various writing projects in some semblance of order. But it’s minimalistic enough to stay out of my way and just let me get to the writing.

For me, this is a huge plus. I’m a big settings guy. I’ll waste away days just tweaking settings instead of actually buckling down and doing the work. (Incidentally, this was one of the reasons why I decided to give Micro.blog a whirl. I had been using WordPress for years, but I would always get completely sidetracked by playing with settings every time I wanted to just sit down and write something. Micro.blog does not get in my way like that.)

Ulysses is great for me, also, because everything just syncs in the background, regardless of the device I’m using. So I can just work on my tablet, or even my phone, and know that the work will be synced to my laptop without issue. So I’ll be doing my drafting in Ulysses.

I will be trying to use iA Writer as well when it comes time to actually convert my story into a script. I’ve never used iA Writer’s screenwriting features, but I do believe it actually has them. That’s something I’ll be testing out this week. Worst case scenario, I’ll just follow the script guidelines and draft it by hand. But I’m hoping iA Writer fits the need here.

For the other project, though, the blogging on the road, this will involve some experimentation. As I’ve mentioned before, I use MarsEdit to do all my blog post writing. I don’t bother with drafting in Ulysses first, although I certainly could. (Really, I love Ulysses!) Since I’m posting every day, I wanted something that felt separate, something dedicated specifically to the task. And MarsEdit has been doing the job perfectly for me. I just open up a new post, type away until I like what I see, and hit the very satisfying “Send to Blog” button. Done and done.

But there is no MarsEdit for mobile. Le sigh. So what can I use? I post my daily entries on two separate websites, one using Micro.blog and one using WordPress. (I’m doing this for reasons. Maybe someday, someday soon even, I’ll stop and just pick one. But for now I’m testing to see what I like and what I don’t.) I very much don’t relish the idea of writing up my entries in the dedicated Micro.blog and WordPress apps, though. I’ve been burned in the past with WordPress specifically, having been putting the finishing touches on a long piece only to have the app crash and everything lost. I’m sure the app is better now, but trust is hard won and easily lost.

So what do I want, then? What is the goal? Really, I want MarsEdit on mobile. But since that doesn’t exist this week, I want as close as I can get to that. So I’ll be spending this week playing around with the various writing apps I already have on my phone and tablet, examining each to see what they may offer in the realm of publishing blog posts. My hope is that, by the end of the week, I’ll have found a nice solution that will allow me to write and post all from within a single app.

To give myself some guard rails, I’ll attempt for now to stick just to evaluating the apps I already have installed. Embarrassingly, that doesn’t narrow the field greatly. I’m looking at my phone right now and I have the following:
– Ulysses (because I love it)
– Drafts (another daily go-to for which I continue to find new uses)
– Scrivener
– Bear
– Ulysses (yes, somehow I have two versions of it installed, because I love it and I’ve never bothered to try and figure out why there are two of them)
– iA Writer
– Byword
– MacJournal (this has burned me before, too, though, and it’s not even in the iOS App Store anymore)
– WordPress (though I never actually write in this)
– Micro.blog (I do replies in this, but never posts)

Yeah, that list is too long. We’re not going to talk about the number of apps I have on my phone. But that’s the list. I’ll be playing around with each of them to see if I can get any of them to do the job the way I want it done.

The goal will be to find, ideally, one single app that will let me draft a post, do any necessary edits, add any applicable tags, set the title, and post to two different blogs. Bonus points if it can also handle images. And double bonus if it syncs and allows me to edit previously published posts (though that is not a must have, more a want than a need).

As always, I’m open to any suggestions. If you’ve already worked this problem and know how to make it work with any of the apps I’ve listed here, please reach out and let me know! And if you use a different app that does the job marvelously, I’m always looking for an excuse to try something new and shiny.

Preparing to Embark

It’s looking like I’ll be working on two projects this week. The big one will be to write the screenplay for the screenwriting challenge I wrote about all last week. While this will eat up a good portion of my time and energy this week, it’ll likely not be something I’ll be mentioning too much here, aside from maybe a little progress update or something.

The other project I’ll be working on this week, though, is one I’ll be doing in the open. This week I’ll be working on coming up with a system to blog from the road.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a huge fan of MarsEdit. The one major drawback of it, though, is that there is no mobile version. It resides solely on my laptop, which I don’t plan on bringing with me on our family vacation at the end of the week.

This leaves me with a challenge. I need to find a comparable way to write, edit, and publish these posts while I’m traveling. I know this should be easy. But I tend to overcomplicate, especially when it comes to writing interfaces and software in general. I know that I don’t want to have to rely on multiple apps to get the job done. What I want is one place where I can type up some words, maybe even include a photo or two from the road, and post without leaving the app.

So that will be my other big goal this week. Come up with a solution that works for me to write and publish posts while mobile. Fingers crossed I find something that works!

Week 11: 11-17MAR2024

I love little life moments that feel small at the time, but have the potential to become momentous down the road. This week I took my son to get a new camera. He’s been more interested in photography lately, but his old kiddy camera is just not up to the task of giving him room to grow. He’s been using his iPad to take pictures, but it pains me every time I see it.

I’ve been wanting to get him something better for a while now. He’s not quite at the point where a DSLR would be worth the investment (though I do live for the moment when he wants to borrow/steal mine). So I’ve been looking for something middle of the road for a while now.

I think we finally found something that would do the trick for him. This week we picked up a Fujifilm instax mini Evo for him. And I’m so excited to see what he does with it. It’s a hybrid digital/instant camera, meaning that it works like a normal point-and-shoot digital, but can also print off pictures like an old Polaroid.

We’ve got a family vacation coming up, and I’m hoping that he reaches for his camera at least once during the trip. I’m excited to see what happens. And I look forward to the day when I have to ask him where my camera has gone to.

Weekly Goals:

The only big goal I had this week was to learn the basics of writing a screenplay to prepare myself for the NYC Midnight Screenwriting Challenge. I’m feeling like I’m in a better position now for this writing challenge than I was at the beginning of the week. So goal accomplished.

I also had to secure train tickets for our upcoming vacation this week. And I’m discovering that train tickets in Europe are a funny thing. They’re either very easy, or very hard. I got to experience both this time. But travel is secured, and we’re all very excited for a fun train ride.

Doing:

I finally got around to the household stuff I’ve been putting off. We moved recently, and there are still more boxes than I’d like that needed dealing with. Now there are fewer of those. I’ve always found that it takes a solid year to actually settle into a new place. No matter how many times I move, the timeline never seems to shrink. So I’m giving myself time, but also trying to make sure I stick to doing some settling in every week until it’s done.

This week I’ve been focusing on my office. It’s become more clear to me how much I need this space to be functioning, as I’ve been spending more time in it. I do most writing in my office, and being surrounded by piles of things that need sorting is too much of a temptation to turn away from the keyboard.

Posts Made This Week:

Listening to This Week:

  • Finished Young’s Infinite City. I really enjoyed it, and I look forward to another season of it if/when it comes out.

Currently Watching:

  • Constellation is getting really good.
  • Finished The Last Ship through the end of the fourth season. I can’t find season five available to stream anywhere, which is always annoying.
  • Watched Damsel on Netflix. Very awesome. If I had a daughter, I would watch this on loop with her.
  • Started The Regime on HBO and Mr. & Mrs. Smith on Amazon Prime. These have both been very good so far. Mr. & Mrs. Smith, especially, has been a blast so far.

Currently Reading:

  • Reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow still. Loving it so far. Hoping to finish it in the next few days. I’m taking my time with it, though. Some books I’ll burn through, but others I’ll savor. This one has called for savoring.

And that’s the week done. Tune in tomorrow to see what I end up settling on to fill the next seven days. Hopefully I’ll have made my mind up by then.