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I recently surveyed a writer about their software woes. Response: "I am a writer - fiction and non-fiction. I haven't found good software to keep my notes, s

I recently surveyed a writer about their software woes. Response: "I am a writer - fiction and non-fiction. I haven't found good software to keep my notes, sentences, ideas, etc. in a way that helps me easily incorporate them into the project I am working on. Oftentimes, I will come up with a sentence or a paragraph that I want to put in my story at a later time. It's just a moment - an idea- that comes up that I want to save for later use. Well, guess what, these ideas start piling up and I could have a huge pile of sentences/paragraphs that I will use to build my story. But hey, I don't know just yet where I want to place them to tell the most effective story. I want a section in the particular file I am working on where I can keep these ideas instead of having a whole separate "ideas" file or worse, scribbled on a paper napkin. I'd like to be able to easily drag and drop that paragraph/sentence from my ideas section right into my story without having to do the annoying cut and paste or worse, figuring out what file I saved that great sentence in. I'd pay $130+ for it."

empath75 9y ago
scrivener?
- jeffwass 9y ago
  Was about to say the same. Scrivener is your friend here, and it's not even $130
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Hm, looks interesting, but is there anything similar available for Linux? I use a small chromebook as a primary workstation for its light form factor and ARM's low power usage/long battery life. So if it's Mac/Windows or closed source without an ARM binary, I can't use it.
HerrMonnezza 9y ago
emacs with org-mode?
notamy 9y ago
Honestly this reminds me a lot of the TempleOS editor.
O1111OOO 9y ago
Sounds like this writer is talking about two different things: 1. dragging/pasting ideas from an idea section directly into a writing program. This is where s/he's sitting comfortably somewhere actually working. 2. Scribbling ideas "on the fly" - which can happen anywhere (on the bus, walking down the street, etc..) For the second, I like simplenote[0] and their tagging feature. Lots of support for various OSes. On 32-bit LinuxMint, I'm using nvPY[1] since simplenote doesn't have a 32-bit deb. In order to solve both problems, the writing program could support something like simplenote via plugin. This way s/he gets their left-hand, drag/paste panel. Note: also like https://standardnotes.org/ https://standardnotes.org/ but could not get it to run on my older phone, no 32-bit linux support. [0] https://simplenote.com/ https://simplenote.com/ [1] https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy
dredmorbius 9y ago
Content organisation is ... a massive problem. I'm thinking of writing a solution (or parts of one). In the meantime: Index cards. Closing in on 10k of those.

empath75 9y ago

scrivener?

jeffwass 9y ago
Was about to say the same. Scrivener is your friend here, and it's not even $130
leggomylibro 9y ago
Hm, looks interesting, but is there anything similar available for Linux? I use a small chromebook as a primary workstation for its light form factor and ARM's low power usage/long battery life. So if it's Mac/Windows or closed source without an ARM binary, I can't use it.

HerrMonnezza 9y ago

emacs with org-mode?

notamy 9y ago

Honestly this reminds me a lot of the TempleOS editor.

O1111OOO 9y ago

Sounds like this writer is talking about two different things: 1. dragging/pasting ideas from an idea section directly into a writing program. This is where s/he's sitting comfortably somewhere actually working. 2. Scribbling ideas "on the fly" - which can happen anywhere (on the bus, walking down the street, etc..) For the second, I like simplenote[0] and their tagging feature. Lots of support for various OSes. On 32-bit LinuxMint, I'm using nvPY[1] since simplenote doesn't have a 32-bit deb. In order to solve both problems, the writing program could support something like simplenote via plugin. This way s/he gets their left-hand, drag/paste panel. Note: also like https://standardnotes.org/ https://standardnotes.org/ but could not get it to run on my older phone, no 32-bit linux support. [0] https://simplenote.com/ https://simplenote.com/ [1] https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy

dredmorbius 9y ago

Content organisation is ... a massive problem. I'm thinking of writing a solution (or parts of one). In the meantime: Index cards. Closing in on 10k of those.