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Thursday, October 22, 2009

What's Up, Google Docs!

I've been doing a lot of research lately for a number of writing projects, but things often get waylaid when the wife usurps the laptop. My normal research process is to bury myself in a subject; I read, read read and take notes on the computer as I go. Whether I'm looking up biographical details about the jazz musician Sun Ra or exploring different ways to describe what happens when an object falls into a black hole, it's a method that works for me so I can get those odd, salient details into a piece.

Even though it's our laptop now, it was my laptop before we got married. So most of my writing files are on there and, frankly, I'm just used to keeping them there. And while we have a desktop computer as well the laptop is often just the most convenient one to jump onto.

Walking the dog tonight, a solution occurred to me: google docs. I've used it before for group coursework in library school and even for some projects I've worked on for YALSA. But never just for myself. Surprising I never thought of it before now, because it is so damn easy to use. Either upload your documents or work on it right there in the web-browser. The beauty of it is, I'll be able to save my work no matter what computer I use. Hell, I can even work on some things during my lunch time or other slow moments at work. I know, I know. This sounds like my account's been hacked by google...so to be fair, I know there are other document-sharing programs out there. This is just the one I've used and know how to use.

So, thanks to google docs, I have no more excuses for not writing. At least so long as we have at least two computers in our home. I guess I better get back to it.

Excelsior