Writers & illustrators: DO YOUR BACKUPS. Here's my backup system and how it saved me when an Adobe Creative Cloud update bug ate my work.

While Adobe Creative Cloud is convenient in so many ways, an update bug removed a LOT of my files last year, including entire file folders of PSD book illustration files. Even a year later, it makes me queasy to remember staring at the screen as I watched in horror as files were disappearing RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES and having no idea what was going on.

Cloud backup service Backblaze discovered the bug. Happily, my tech-savvy husband had set up a backup system for me using Time Machine, Backblaze and a physical offsite backup, and he helped me rebuild my hard drive. 

Yes, it can be a hassle to set up a proper backup system but trust me: IT'S WORTH DOING. Imagine how you'd feel if your computer quit working or was stolen right now, and your content wasn't backed up. Even apart from your work, what about some of the personal photos of moments and people you will never be able to replace?

People tend not to really think about a backup until they need one. I can't imagine what I would have done if I didn't have a working backup when Adobe Creative Cloud ate all those files.

Another tip: Do regular checks to make sure your backup system is working properly!

I do still use Adobe Creative Cloud, but I wait a while before installing any update. That way I let other people find the bugs for Adobe to fix before they release an updated update. :-)

Testing Padlet's embedding function with some Broken Crayons

As some of you (those who follow me on Instagram or Twitter) may have noticed, I've been having a ton of fun with broken crayons lately. 

Because you never know what will come out of a broken crayon.

I've been experimenting with Padlet lately as another potential way of interacting with young readers next year. So far, I'm delighted by how easy it is to use! Once I've played around with it some more, I'll write up a blog post about what I've learned.

Thanks to the educators out there who pointed me to Padlet!

Productivity tool: Coffee shop sounds, creative productivity and Coffitivity - and a poll

Survey: Do you like background noise while you're working?

Don't know about the rest of you, but I find my background noise preference depends heavily on what I'm working on. When I'm illustrating and am past the early sketch stages, I listen to audiobooks or have episodes of a previously-watched tv shows playing on my second monitor; the key for me is to have something interesting enough for variety but not TOO interesting to distract me from work.

For early creative stages and for writing, I used to prefer silence. These days, however,  I like to have something going on in the background, especially if my work day has been especially long. Music with English lyrics is too distracting, so I listen to Italian progrock but even that can start driving me crazy after a while.

One of my favorite background sounds for intense creative work? Coffee shop noise: murmured conversations, movement, muted clatter of cups and cutlery. I also find having people around who are DOING things stimulating, and I'm less likely to start daydreaming or slack off. I used to go to real-life coffee shops to do my writing, but this has downsides. The expense, for one thing, plus sometimes the conversations taking place around me are a tad TOO interesting.

Looks as if I'm not the only one who finds coffee shops and coffee shop sounds motivating:

How The Hum Of A Coffee Shop Can Boost Creativity - by Anahad O'Connor in The New York Times

Why Some Of Us Get More Done At Coffee Shops - by Kevin Purdy on Lifehacker

Coffitivity Plays Ambient Coffee Shop Noise To Boost Your Productivity - by Melanie Pinola on Lifehacker

For others who like coffee shop sounds in the background while they work, here's one solution:

Coffitivity: Just opening up the website page will start up the sounds of a coffee shop, and you can also get free apps for iOS, Droid and Mac desktop. I prefer the latter because I don't like having my browser open while working because it's too tempting to "just check one more website."

There are choices of other sounds as well, like a campus cafe and lunchtime lounge. Coffitivity has also invited the community to submit sounds to share, so I expect we'll get more choices soon.

How about the rest of you? Do you prefer silence? If not, what do you like to listen to while you work? I'd appreciate you taking a few minutes to answer my 1-2 multiple question poll: Do you prefer background noise while you work?

I'll post results in an upcoming Inkygirl post.

Kindoma remote bedtime reading could be useful for authors

I was intrigued by this New York Times article, which talks about how Kindoma's new Storytime app lets grandparents and others read bedtime books remotely to children.

Another possible application: authors doing remote readings for small groups of students? Or larger groups, if the iPad is hooked up to a larger display.

I haven't yet tried the app, but the catch is that the app has to have the book in its library. Once the tech is streamlined and if successful, however, perhaps publishers would want to partner with Kindoma to make titles available. 

iPad Apps For Writers

I've updated my list of iPad Apps For Writers with a review of Black Mana Studio's Manuscript for the iPad.

Taskpaper: minimalist note-taking PLUS other favorite organization/writing apps

I'm a big fan of lists, and have been experimenting with various To Do list systems for quite a few years. Recently I've been using Culturedcode's Things, which syncs between a desktop version and my iPhone. While I like Things, in the past year I've found myself relying more on a plain text file. I suppose part of it is feature overload -- there are SO many great apps out there with all kinds of cool features, but sometimes I find myself spending way too much time fiddling with the settings. I started a plain text file for daily tasks out of a need to see just the bare content without the distractions of other stuff. Which brings me to Taskpaper, which was developed by Jesse Grosjean. Jesse is also the developer behind Writeroom, a minimalist writing environment. Taskpaper works like a simple text editor. From the website:

Works like a text editor Type your lists into TaskPaper and each line is formatted into a project, task, or note. TaskPaper doesn’t force a particular system on you; it provides you with basic to-do list elements and then you use them as you see fit. Feels like a magic piece of paper TaskPaper has a magic trick. It can instantly filter your entire list to show only items of interest. TaskPaper’s filter system is simple to use—focus on a particular project or tag with a single tap. It also supports advanced searching if need.

I've been using Taskpaper heavily on my desktop and iPhone lately, and am excited to hear that Jesse is working on an iPad version. After reading SimpleText, TaskPaper, WriteRoom, Notational Velocity – Going minimalist with my notes from Dougist.com, I decided to adopt some of his strategies. What I'm trying now: For longer writing projects, I use Scrivener. Not sure what will happen with that when I get my iPad, since it doesn't look as if there will be an iPad version of Scrivener. If I end up using my iPad for doing a lot of writing outside of my office, then I'll probably have to look for an alternative. For pure writing (not outlining), my favourite so far is WriteRoom. WriteRoom has improved its features and flexibility a great deal since it first launched; although the green text on black was cute, I found it hard on the eyes. Now that I can write on a lighter background, WriteRoom is back in my favourites list. WriteRoom also has an iPhone app. I use Evernote as my catch-all for everything: important e-mails, maps, audio notes, business card scans, screenshots, etc. plus a reference library for my comics. What I like best about Evernote: (1) search recognizes text and handwriting in images, (2) I can e-mail items directly to Evernote, (3) it syncs with my iPhone, (4) an iPad version will be available and (5) it's actively seeking partnerships with other app companies, making it more useful to me. I use Zengobi's Curio for visual brainstorming. What I like best about this product: (1) the drawing feature supports my Wacom Intuos tablet, (2) Evernote integration, (3) an iPad version will be available, (4) the wide variety of supported media appeal to my packrat nature, and I find it a huge creative boost. I've also just started checking out Notational Velocity and SimpleNote, mainly because they seem to work so well with Taskpaper and Writeroom. But back to Taskpaper... One of my only quibbles about Taskpaper is that the sync process is a bit of a pain. It took me a little while to get everything straight and I'm used to it now, but I suspect this is the factor that will keep Taskpaper from appealing to a wider audience. Anyway, in case there are other Mac users who are syncing between their desktop Taskpaper and the iphone app, I've put together a basic overview in laymen's terms of the process. I spent some time looking in vain for this kind of document when I first started using Taskpaper, so figure it might be useful to others out there: Taskpaper Syncing Tips For Mac Users with iPhones INSTALL SIMPLETEXT All the synching goes through SimpleText, so you need to install and run the SimpleText client from: http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/simpletext. When you run SimpleText, it may seem as if nothing happens. Look at the navigation bar at the top of your screen; the SimpleText icon is the black circle with the small white pencil inside. Click on it and choose "Open SimpleText folder" from the drop-down menu. Move any Taskpaper docs you want to sync into the SimpleText folder. TO GET CHANGES FROM YOUR DESKTOP TASKPAPER APP TO YOUR IPHONE TASKPAPER APP: After making your changes, save your Taskpaper document. If you followed the instructions above correctly, this document should reside in the SimpleText folder on your desktop. Click on the SimpleText icon at the top of your screen and choose "Sync" from the dropdown menu. This sends changes to SimpleText. On your iPhone Taskpaper app, go to the main Documents screen. Click on the icon on the top left corner: it should look like a small piece of paper with lines on it. Choose "Sync" from the drop-down menu. TO GET CHANGES FROM YOUR IPHONE TASKPAPER APP TO YOUR DESKTOP TASKPAPER APP: After making changes to the document on your Taskpaper iPhone app, make sure you click "Done" to save it. Go back to the main Documents screen. Click on the icon on the top left corner: it should look like a small piece of paper with lines on it. Choose "Sync" from the drop- down menu. This sends the changes to Simpletext. Back on your desktop computer, open Taskpaper. Click on the SimpleText icon at the top of your screen and choose "Sync" from the dropdown menu. NOTE: If you already had Taskpaper open, with the SAME document open that you've been changing on your iPhone, then you'll also need to go to Taskpaper on your desktop computer, click on the File menu and select "Revert to Saved." To other Taskpaper users: dod I miss anything? Feel free to point out corrections that need to be made to the info above. Many thanks to Lawrence, Elastic Threads, Eugene, Doug and others for their help. Related helpful docs and sites: Main Taskpaper website Developer's tips on how to sync Taskpaper to the iPhone Taskpaper overview video How other people are using Taskpaper Hog Bay Software blog Taskpaper forum

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Curio for the iPad?

I was recently approached by a publisher who likes my illustrations, asking if I had any stories to go with them. I've started using Zengobi's Curio to brainstorm. LOVE this program. I'm also using it to brainstorm about my other writing projects, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as my cartoons. Curio's creator is unsure about whether to create an iPad-friendly version and is asking for feedback on the Curio forums:

I'd love to hear from some students given that we have a TON of college students using Curio. Are you going to be purchasing an iPad? To supplement your Macbook or for replacing it? Likewise, we have a ton of professional users (designers, filmmakers, and other creative types, and plus engineers, scientists, etc) using Curio. What are your thoughts on the iPad?

If you're a Curio user who love to see a version for the iPad, please do post your opinion on the Zengobi Curio forum! Here are some useful posts about how writers use Curio: Zengobi Curio : Project Central on my Mac Using Curio to plan a book Curio and Screenwriting Writer's Gem: Curio - by Angela Booth

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