Using a New Medium to Spark Creativity and Production

It’s hard to find the time to write these days, and when I have a spark of creativity I’m not always in front of the computer or have my notebook with me. There are new ways to write on the go, which I just recently discovered.

The other day I was out running errands as a new idea came to me. It hit me hard like a line drive down the 3rd base line. How was I going to get to a notebook or computer in time to write it all down? I’m sure all of you have had these moments, where panic ensues and in the end you have no idea what that idea was. Of course once you’ve forgotten it completely, you know that it was probably the most brilliant idea ever, right? So as the words came flying at me (yep, not only the idea but actual WORDS), I rummaged through my purse, only to find my iPhone. “It has a Notes app,” I said shrugging and promptly opened the application up. I proceeded to not only type up my idea on the phone but the first few paragraphs. You would think it was awkward, but to be honest it wasn’t. That’s when I got an idea. What if I wrote a lot of the first draft on my iPhone, making it hard to go back and edit so I could just worry about the words as they came? It was a crazy idea, but I thought I would give it a shot and started to investigate.

Now, for those of you who have Smart phones, especially iPhones, you know there are way too many apps out there to easily find the good ones. Lucky enough, I found one that’s pretty darn good and thought I would share my research.

NoteMaster is a note-taking app that allows sync back and forth from Google docs. I’ve had the app a few days and used it yesterday to continue my story. It lets you sync certain files, folders or everything you have stored in Google docs. The sync is almost instant and the doc formatting comes back and forth pretty seamlessly. My only beef (so far) with NoteMaster is that the text is a lot smaller than it is with the standard Notes app that the iPhone comes with. For $4.99, I think it’s definitely worth the price.

Right before buying NoteMaster, I wanted to see if anyone I knew used it. I Twittered asking if anyone had it and YA author Heather Hanson responded that she hadn’t but to let her know what I thought if I went ahead and got it. We twittered back and forth and she pointed me in the direction of another app for the iPhone that could be really useful—Docs to Go. With this little app (two versions, one is $4.99, the more expensive is $9.99) you can view, edit and create Microsoft Word files. You can even view excel, pdf and more! With the more expensive version, you can send and receive attachments via Microsoft Exchange email.

I’m sure there are more amazing apps and programs out there for all you tech savvy people! Those are the few I have dabbled in. It’s great to know that at any time I can pull out my cell phone and start writing!

Have you tried to use a Smart Phone to write your book?