Reality Bypass

Ode to Goggle Docs April 23, 2010

Okay, so it won’t actually be poetry, but figured today I wanted to talk just a little about Goggle Docs.  Kristen and I do a lot of coauthoring work.  We’ve been doing this for years and one of the hardest parts has been getting information back and forth and keeping track of brainstorming ideas.  I have folders full of print outs and hundreds of emails from which we try to distill the information we want to keep. It is, in short, a pain.

In recent months Google has come up with a document system which allows for a document to be uploaded and shared and we’ve started playing with this and found it to be a great way to keep everything organized and moving forward.  We create folders for projects and then files within the folders.  These can be files for character data, plotting, etc, or we can work on chapters passing it back and forth, but with the ability to go through and edit at any time.  When it’s all done the new chapter gets pulled into the master doc and we’re ready to move on.  I’m certainly a fan.

Jana