April 2, 2012

Editing workflow: hardware edition

Yes, of course I'm still editing Xmas Carol. I will until the day I publish the book. But this post is about hardware.

Much to my surprise, I find that using my iPod Touch and Macbook Air, I'm able to edit very efficiently. What I do is send the book to the iPod Touch, where I read it in iBooks. The shocking thing is that I can grasp the text much better on the Touch screen, compared to seeing it in Scrivener, my writing program. It's just easier to grok. I'm not sure why.

In any case, I read the book on the Touch and when I find something I want to change, I do it on the Air in Scrivener. Now and then, I turn the Scrivener file into a fresh file for iBooks and check the changes to see if they read well. As a result of this seemingly simple process, I'm doing the best editing I've ever done. The book sounds much, much better.

Any other writers out there? What tricks do you use when editing?

4 comments:

Anna Guess Pick said...

I don't edit. If I wanted to be an Editor I'd work for the NY Times.

I write. How I write is up to others to judge, but it's not my problem. I'm a writer, not an editor.

writenow said...

I can't separate the two. Writing is essentially on-the-fly editing. We choose this word over that, this way of saying something rather than another. And when it's down on the page, it can be altered. Writing and editing are one thing, at least to me.

Glad you can skip it. Maybe I'll learn that trick one day. But right now, editing makes me happy -- and makes the book better. Sounds like a win to me.

Anna Guess Pick said...

Wouldn't life be a bore if we agreed on everything? lol Wish we could sip some wine on the porch, watch the geese and talk together, wouldn't that be fun? ;)

writenow said...

If I sip some wine, my writing days are over. Other than that, sounds great.