I can’t emphasize enough how useful Evernote is for taking part in NaNoWriMo or any other quick, crank-out-the-words writing exercise.
I mentioned Evernote in my last article, suggesting it would be useful for NaNoWriMo, but I really am just learning how that works well myself. Today I was looking through our local newspaper and saw a story that sparked an idea for a novel (heck, it may work into a whole series of humorous fantasy novels). I simply smacked down the Control-Alt-N keys (I work on a Windows 7 computer; Macs probably vary) and, wham! I had an open empty Evernote note. As fast as my pudgy little fingers would fly, I was able to put out a couple of paragraphs about the idea. Then I tagged it with “novel idea” and it was captured both on my computer and in the “cloud” for as long as I want to keep it.
Not only is Evernote useful for capturing fleeting thoughts like that, it is extremely valuable for quickly cranking out your daily words if you’re doing NaNoWriMo. How in the world much easier can “journaling” or a “diary” or other writing development be than Evernote?
Many years ago, when I was a much younger lad and first aspiring to write, I remember being enchanted by some successful novelist’s writing tip: Get a roll (yes, a roll) of cheap teletype paper. Set it or prop it up behind your typewriter (yes, typewriter), then feed it into the machine. Now, as though it were magic, you had a nearly unlimited amount of typing space at hand without having to reload paper each time you finished a page.
I can still remember doing something with that now-oh-so-antique idea. It seemed pretty clever and high-tech at the time, and I suppose it was. Just think: No more disrupting the heat of passion when you were in mid-story mode. You could just keep going and going until, in theory anyway, you filled up your role of paper. (I cannot remember where I bought the rolls of paper, nor how many feet long they were.) No problem then — just rip open another role and feed it into the typewriter.
So think of Evernote, or any other text creating/text editing software you might have, I suppose, as an update of that paper roll. Only you won’t even need to feed in a new role, ever. In addition, with Evernote you can add those useful tags to help you search and find absolutely anything you type (keyboard?). It’s like being able to lay your entire mind out on “paper” one chunk or many chunks at a time — and always be able to sort out and organize or sort through the chunks.
I highly recommend it. Now excuse me while I crank another paper roll into the machine and get back to my NaNoWriMo work …
