A Memorable Idea

This past weekend was full and tiring. My parents visited Friday night, and two awesome friends visited Saturday night. There was drinking and eating and cleaning up before and after visits, and between all that we had the baby outside in her pool, going for walks and playing with the neighbor’s grandkids. In addition to all that I had a hard time sleeping Friday night, and we were up drinking and playing foolish trivia games until 3 am on Saturday night, so I’ve developed a rather debilitating sleep debt.

This is currently the face of my jealousy.

So it is with bags under my eyes and an enormous yawn on my lips that I sat down at my laptop and struggled to think of something to blog about for today. I considered a number of previously-planned options that made my head hurt because I am simply too tired to deal with them right now. I thought about reading the first chapter of The Artist’s Way and talking about that, but it turns out that there are half a dozen introduction chapters that seem pretty important before you get to the actual program part of the book, and my addled brain can’t really handle that at the moment. I thought about simply writing about my weekend, about the tomfoolery that occurs when the husband and I get together with our friends and some good liquor, but I couldn’t figure out how to work that into anything coherent and interesting.

With those ideas set aside, I thought I’d mention something that I had been meaning to bring up for a while. It’s an idea I came up with one day a while ago, something that’s one part memory exercise, one part mental therapy, and one part keepsake-that-can-be-helpful-when-writing.

I call it a Memory Book, for lack of something cooler. I don’t remember when or why I came up with the idea, but one day I picked up a pretty notebook and a nice pen, and I began writing down memories. I don’t make the memories long and complicated; they’re generally just a one-or-two-liner that gives the basic idea. For instance, I might write, “That time I decided to roller-blade to school, but the hill was too steep and I ended up having to admit defeat.”

The memories can be good ones (“The first time Jason told me he loved me…he looked so cute and nervous!”) or bad ones (“The first time I left for out West and I was waiting for the plane while struggling not to cry.”) or just random things from my past that mean nothing but that are non-the-less cluttering up my brain (“The time our cabin water was shut down so we kept having to collect stream water in buckets in order to be able to flush the toilet.”). Any random memory that I can think of can end up in the book.

So what’s the point?

Well, for one thing it exercises my memory (which has gone so downhill over the past six or seven years of my life) to bring up information that might be buried deep; alternatively, re-reading it allows me to recall things I may have allowed myself to forget about.

For another thing, it can be very therapeutic. Instead of struggling to think of something to write for my works-in-progress or my blog, I can just sit with this notebook and spill out information that’s already in my head, like a mental Spring Cleaning.

And lastly, having this notebook handy has actually been helpful to my writing. See, one of the hardest aspects of writing fiction (in my opinion) is coming up with relatable characters, people whom the readers will love and sympathize with. Part of this is making the characters feel more real, and in the past I’ve been able to accomplish this by using my Memory Book and juicing the memories up a bit to craft pasts for my characters. Why is a certain character so shy? Because of this embarrassing event, stolen from my Memory Book and blown up a bit to make it sound even more mortifying. How did two other characters meet? Steal something from the Memory Book and spruce up the details a bit. See what I’m saying?

A Memory Book might not be useful for everyone, but it’s been useful for me in several ways, so I thought I’d share and invite everyone to give it a try. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy…it could be a Dollar Store notebook tucked into your purse or wallet, or a Word file on your computer. You can write about any kind of memories you like, and you can write quick one-liners like me or write a whole page for each. Whatever makes it work for you.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from you!

Accountability Tuesdays – Week 28

My blog is not what you would call a “big deal”. My readers mostly consist of close friends and family members who click on the links that I post to Facebook. I get approximately 30 views a day on average, and it’s quite rare that any of those viewers bother to comment on any of my posts. And that’s okay…I’m still just budding, after all.

But since my blog is not exactly the “next big thing” in Internet entertainment, I can’t help but get a little giddy when people actually do drop by. This week, to my surprise, I got three new blog followers, as well as a handful of Twitter followers. It was a very pleasant surprise, so I thought I’d mention it and wave, “HI!” to the newbies who are dropping in here. Love you guys! Please keep coming! I’m so lonely! 😀

Health and Body Image Goal

Hahahahaha… Over the past 28 weeks I have not dedicated myself enough to see any really decent results. If you’ve been reading, you know this. I lost maybe 1 or 2 pounds, and a (small) area or two may have toned up a bit. And over the past week I believe I have somehow managed to undo even those tiny victories. I don’t know how it happened, but without gaining any actual weight (according to the scale) I’ve somehow managed to get bigger. Half of my clothes are tight and the other half I can’t get into without breaking the seams. Even my bathing suit refused to let me into it. I feel really rotten about it, if you want to know, but you probably don’t want to know, so let’s move on, shall we?

Editing Goal

I’m still plugging away at my supernatural romance, hoping to get it finished by the end of the month. I didn’t get to look at it much this week, since I spent a good chunk of the weekend away from home for a wedding, but I’m getting there, really. I swear.

In addition, because of what I’ve been reading in craft books and some tips I’ve been stumbling across online, I’ve got lots of ideas for the revision and editing of my zombie apocalypse novel when I get to it. I feel really good about making it a better novel over all. Very exciting.

1,000,000 Word Goal

I definitely didn’t get as much writing in this week as I had originally planned (*cough*hoped), but a few words are a few words, I suppose. I managed to squeak in 4490 words, which isn’t the worst I’ve done, anyway. I’ve been finding it hard to get myself in front of a computer these days. Also, I’ve been trying to read all the craft books that I got, which is slowing me down because I’m taking my time and trying to really understand what I’m reading. On the upside, what I’ve been reading so far is giving me ideas for blog posts, so there’s a small victory. 🙂

I completely botched the 750 Words challenge as soon as I got home from out West, but things are calming down now, so I think I’m going to return to it, if only to get some ramblings out of my head each morning. What I write there probably won’t be anything worth sharing, but it will keep me writing and get my brain flowing, or so I hope. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Until next week!

Camping while there’s still snow on the ground…yikes!

This special weekend edition post of No Page Left Blank is brought to you by Camp NaNoWriMo, in which I will be participating for the first time this year.

I’ve mentioned National Novel Writing Month before; for those who have never heard, it’s a challenge to all writers across the globe to write a 50,000 word novel entirely within the month of November. The challenge is run by a group of wonderful peoplel at the Office of Light and Letters, and participating (which is free!) grants you access to a community full of writers of all ages, enthnicities, religious groups, skill levels, and whatever other group designations you can think of. It’s a wonderful challenge that has really helped thousands upon thousands of people to finally get that novel out of their head and down on paper (or computer screen). The community aspect is so supportive and helpful, and there are lots of fun little distractions on the website as well. There are even in-real-life meetings organized by Municiple Liasons (or whoever takes up the task) where writers can meet each other and have write-in events. All in all, it’s just a great and fun event that I’ve participated in several years in a row now.

Camp NaNoWriMo is a similar event that is also hosted by the Office of Letters and Light twice a year. It’s like NaNoWriMo, but a little less structured, a little more freebase, and a little more casual. This year they’ve pleased many people by making the word count goal variable. If you want to participate but don’t think you have a chance of hitting a goal of 50,000, you can tailor your goal to suit yourself. If you think you’re a superstar and you can double, triple, or quadruple that goal, then that’s what you can do!

I’ve chosen to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this year because of the motivational advantage. NaNoWriMo always revs me up to write as much as I possibly can because I love the challenge of it, and that’s something I sorely need these days. While I have been writing quite a lot since my Wildly Improbable Goals post, my enthusiasm has been waning. I’ve been unmotivated to the max, and have been finding myself struggling to get through each sentence. I hope to banish these lethargic feelings by taking up the challenge that starts tomorrow on April 1st.

I don’t think I have it in me to get through 50,000 words, considering my work schedule and how active my daughter is getting, but I don’t think it will be pushing it to give myself a word count goal of 30,000 for April. That’s slightly less than 1000 words a day, which I did with some amount of success back when I first started this blog. Can I do it again for one month? I think so. I hope so. We’ll see!

If anyone is brave enough to take up the challenge with me, visit the website ASAP! The challenge starts tomorrow, people! Seize the day!!

Liebster Award

Yay! A blogging award! It’s been a while since I received one of these, and they’re so much fun! Grizz-Tion recently nominated me for the Liebster Award, which is given to bloggers with fewer than 200 followers as a way to recognize them and support the pursuit of new followers to their blog. The rules of the award are as follows:

1. You must thank the person who nominated you.
2. You must answer the 11 questions your nominator has left for you.
3. You must nominate 11 other bloggers.
4. You must ask 11 questions of the bloggers you nominate.

So first things first, thank you very much Grizz-Tion! I found Grizz-Tion’s blog when we both participated in L. Palmer’s Hello’s and High Fives post. I was attracted to Grizz’s excellent short story, Kyoko the Book Thief. Go see it! Go see it now!

Second things second, I must answer the questions that Grizz left behind:

1. Long hair or short hair, on people?
Depends on the person. Generally I like short hair on men and my preference is for longer hair on women, but it depends on what looks best on the person. Some guys look good with longer hair, and some women look better with shorter hair.

2. Which would you rather do: walk 10 miles or be forced to run 100 yards…both as fast as you could for that pace?
I find myself trying to imagine exactly how long 100 yards is… I would probably go with the 100 yards because as hard as it would be, and as sick as I’d probably feel afterward, it would be over a helluva lot quicker. 10 miles is a long freakin’ way to walk!

3. If you found out that your role model was actually the opposite of what you looked up to, how would you react?
Probably with tears and accusations. 😛
Honestly though, I’m not sure. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve looked at someone as a “role model”. I have people I look up to, but I have a pretty firm grasp on the idea that no one is infallible and that there is no one out there who I’m going to agree with on every aspect, so I pretty much accept that people are going to disappoint me, basically. Does that sound cynical? It sounds cynical to me.

4. Writing by hand in a crowded park, or writing all alone on a computer with no one around, and why?
Depending on my mood, I’ve preferred both, but honestly I seem to write better when there are some distractions around me. Something about silence and being alone makes it hard for me to think…maybe because I’m so used to having a dozen people milling around me at work, or having my daughter running around and my husband talking to me while I’m home. I’ve adapted an ability to write while surrounded by noise and movement, so it’s actually become harder for me to do it in a peaceful environment.

5. Desert island – only 1 book to take with you, just 1. Why did you pick that one?
I’m going to get a little saucy on this one: I choose Survive! by Les Stroud, because…duh.

6. If you were faced with 1 movie monster/bad guy/villain, which would you want to fight and why that one? (Be specific, no generic answers like zombies or vampires. I’m looking for Lestat, or the actual Wolfman.)
I had to think about this one for quite a while. There are a lot of great movie monsters and villains out there, and the thought of fighting most of them fills me with dread. In the end, I think I’m going to go with Darth Vader. Why? Well for one thing he’d probably just force-choke me and be done with it. For another, come on…Darth Vader, man.

7. What would you want the conversation to revolve around if you could sit down and talk to Jesus?
I’d want to talk about how his good intentions had spawned countless forms of ignorance, intolerance, and bigotry all over the world, and suggest to him that he really ought to come back and bitch-slap a few billion people.

8. Who should Cap’n Reynolds truly be with – Zoe, Kaylee, Inara, Saffron, or just stay alone and be bad-ass?
Inara, all the way. He should still be bad-ass and foolish, but it frustrates me to no end when those two get all SEXUAL TENSION! and *nothing happens*.

9. Les Stroud or Bear Grylls?
Neither. My vote is for the cameramen who have to put up with Grylls.

10. Personal choice for the event that will end civilization? Basically, how do you want the apocalypse to start?
You would think that my vote would be for zombies, but I’m not naive…I know that I would be one of the first poor bastards who gets eaten. Instead lets go with a giant meteor slamming into Earth. Maybe I’ll be one of the lucky ones who manages to stow away on the specially-built spaceships that takes off in hopes of establishing a colony on Mars.

11. Killing people just became legal, but only for those labelled huntable material. Which 3 celebrities would you want to be labelled as such and why?
Paris Hilton because she is quite possibly the worst role model for young kids who has ever walked the planet. Justin Bieber because omfg I’m so sick of hearing about him and his music is awful. Kristen Stewart because (despite and regardless of any opinion anyone else might have about her) I think she is quite possibly the worst actress I’ve ever seen and I can’t believe she keeps getting roles.

Third, I have to nominate more bloggers. I’m only picking five, rather than eleven, because (to be blunt) I don’t have time to go through all the blogs I follow and try to pick out 11 who have fewer than 200 followers. That said, I invite anyone who wishes to go ahead and continue on with this award as though I nominated them!

1. Lit and Scribbles with Jae

2. bellscave

3. Daniel Koeker

4. Can I Have a Breakdown After I Finish the Dishes?

5. Musings from the Writer’s Desk

Fourth, I have to submit 11 questions of my own:

1. When did you figure out what you wanted to do for a living, and did you succeed with your choices?

2. Why did you start blogging? Has that reason stayed the same or changed as you’ve blogged?

3. If you could bring one fictional character to life and have them be madly in love with you, who would you choose?

4. Be totally honest: do you really hate the sexy vampire trend, or do you secretly kinda dig it?

5. Tell me about something you’ve always wanted to do but never did, and why not?

6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or My Little Pony?

7. Confess a guilty pleasure that you think other people won’t really understand.

8. Pick a pop culture phenomenon (a book, a movie, a video game, etc) that you absolutely hate and explain why.

9. Laid out before you are all the possible pizza ingredients in the world. What kind of pizza do you make?

10. Describe your perfect day of rest and relaxation.

11. Imagine your dream job (say, being a published author). Now imagine the most embarrassing/socially unacceptable version of your dream job (say, writing erotic literature for porno magazines). If you were offered this embarrassing version of your job and you knew that it was the only chance you were ever going to get at your dream job, would you do it?

Day jobs ruin everything, am I right?

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

28. Write about the time you almost gave up writing for good

I won’t pretend that it’s an interesting story, but yes, there was a time when I almost gave up writing for good. It came as a result of my first post-graduate, degree-relevant job. You see, up to and including the moment when I graduated from university, I had only ever had part-time jobs. I’d worked summers, or evenings and weekends. I had positions that were Monday to Friday, 9-5 deals, but those would only ever last two or three months. Alternatively, the jobs I held in between those were 2-4 days per week, not even necessarily full 8-hour shifts. What I’m getting at here is that I had a lot of spare time to write. Even when I had the (temporary) full-time positions, they were the kinds of jobs where you could haul out a notebook and scribble away while you waited for something to do. Even at my most busy, when I was going to university during the day and working during the evenings, I’d still find time to write during free classes and slow shifts.

That changed quite dramatically when I started working at the paper mill. For one thing, this wasn’t the kind of job where you had down-time that you could fill however you pleased. Most of the time I was busy as hell, and even when I wasn’t it would be frowned upon if I curled up at my desk with a notebook. It was the kind of job where you were expected to be doing something even if there was no something to do. For another thing, this was a full-time, permanent position. I no longer had random slots of time to myself, multiple days off at any given time, and I got no breaks. I’m not talking about break-time during the work day – of course I got those, it’s illegal not to give them. I’m talking about chunks of time – days, weeks, or even months – during which I was completely off. This was a permanent job. After a few months that reality started to set in. I was going to do this job every day, five days a week, four weeks a month, twelve months a year. That first year I didn’t even get my two weeks of vacation because I couldn’t afford to take it (vacation pay is based on previous year’s earnings and since I got hired in December that would have meant I’d get approximately $80 for my two weeks).

With all that said and done, you also have to add in to the equation the fact that I was all alone in the world. I’d had to move an hour and a half from home for the job, while my boyfriend (now husband) was still back home finishing his own university program. Since I was living alone I had to do 100% of the stuff you have to do when you live alone: the grocery shopping, the cooking, the dishes, the laundry, the errands, etc etc etc. To make a long story short (is it too late for that?) I didn’t have a lot of spare time to myself. The spare time I did have I mostly filled with brainless things like watching tv and playing on my computer because I was just too exhausted to do anything else.

It took a while to work my way out of this rut. Eventually my future-hubby moved up with me and I had help around the house again. He would end up getting a job at the mill as well and as time went on things seemed to even out, become more second-nature, and calm down a bit. I’m still as busy as I ever was, but it doesn’t feel as busy because I’m used to it. So a while back I stumbled across NaNoWriMo for the first time and thought, “Hey, you know what? I miss writing. I should start writing again.” It’s been slow-going, and I still don’t always find the time I need to actually do it, but I’ve committed myself to keeping writing as part of my life. It’s important to me, even if it never takes me any further than my own laptop.

A Storm of Brains

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

25. Your process for brainstorming

Have I mentioned that a lot of these post ideas make me feel like a terrible, terrible writer?

I don’t really have a “process” for brainstorming, because I don’t generally brainstorm. For the most part my ideas just come to me, whether it be right away when I need them, or later in a dream, or even weeks, months, or years later when I wasn’t even thinking about it. Most of the time I don’t even think about what I’m writing as I write it; I just write and hope that it all makes sense by the time it’s down on paper (computer screen?).

I guess sometimes I will get stuck and find myself wracking my brain for where to go next, but most of the time I’ll just browse the internet or play a video game or something until my muse tosses a gem into my skull.

A Day at Kearl Lake

I have come to the conclusion that the Internet in my camp room is not going to get fixed while I’m actually still here, so let it be known that I plucked out this entire entry on my iPhone. 😐

Camp life is definitely a different kind of life.

I wake up between 4:00 and 4:30 am. The bed is a little stiff, but I’m used to a cushion-top mattress, so I might be a little biased there. I wash up at the sink in my room, throw on some clothes, grab my lunch bag and stumble down to the main area of the camp.

Breakfast is served in the dining room, should you wish to partake. There are dispensers of cereal, tons of fruit, and you can also get stuff cooked in the kitchen, such as various forms of eggs, sausages, bacon, etc. To drink you can get milk, several kinds of juice, tea, coffee, and hot chocolate. I don’t usually get breakfast in the dining room because I’m lazy and don’t normally eat much for breakfast anyway.

For your work lunch you go to the bag-up room. This room is full of easy-to-grab things like fruit, sandwiches and wraps, sweets, salads, and refrigerated portions of stuff from the kitchens, like lasagna, chili, chicken and potatoes, etc. These things are marked with stickers showing the day they go bad so you can see how old they are and judge whether you’d want to eat them. Of this stuff you can effectively take as much as you want. I usually grab some oatmeal and fruit (which I eat while waiting for the morning work meeting), one of the kitchen things (today I have spaghetti) and some snack stuff like celery and peanut butter, a bagel, some cookies, or whatever.

To get to he job, I line up at the gates at around 5:10 am. The buses line up at 5:15 and leave at 5:30. You have to swipe your card and go through a turnstile and then find the bus that goes to your section of the site. I haven’t actually counted, but I think there are close to thirty different buses. You have to get on the right one or you’ll end up in a section you’re not allowed in. The bus drive takes about half an hour to 40 minutes.

At work we have a meeting and then head out into the site. The site is so huge that you have to sign in to which area you’re going to in case of emergencies. I’m in the Froth section, which is the part of the system that will remove the oil (bitumen) from the sand. It’s still under construction so right now my main duty is to familiarize myself with the equipment. There’s a lot of walking and climbing. A LOT. The other day myself and a couple of the guys climbed to the top of the highest structure on site. It took almost half an hour to get up, but it was a pretty awesome view.

We catch the bus back to camp at the end of the 12-hour shift. If you’re quick you can jump in the bag-up room before it closes and grab some snacks to take to your room. I usually jump in and grab some cookies or something. For supper the dining room generally has two or three entrees and half a dozen possible sides, plus a bunch of deserts. Yesterday I had roasted potatoes and lemon-crusted sole. The night before I had hot wings and fries.

Finally, after supper I basically go up to my room, take a shower, and relax. There’s a gym with lots of equipment but I’m too beat by the end of the day to use it. Maybe I’ll get used to it after a shift or two and start adding in some stints at the gym but for now I just go up to my room, maybe give a call down home, and watch shows on my computer until I fall asleep (which doesn’t take very long).

Eventually I’ll figure out how to squeeze some writing into the day somewhere. 😐

Strike one entry off the bucket list

Today is a very special day for me. June 7th, 2012, approximately 1:00 pm. Mark that date and time down.

What’s so special about this date? It’s not a holiday, nor is it someone’s birthday, or a special occasion like an anniversary. In fact, it’s a pretty normal, even boring day. I’m sitting on the loveseat in my living room, my husband is on his computer up in the bedroom, and the baby is out cold on her pile of pillows on the living room floor. When we three got up this morning we had breakfast (grapes and a granola bar for the baby, coffee for the parents), and we went to playgroup for a couple of hours. It’s windy and chilly outside and looks like it can’t decide whether or not it wants to rain.

So again, what is so special about this date?

I mentioned before, more than once I believe, that I’d never finished any story I ever set out to write, with the exception of one short fanfiction. Today, as of approximately 1 o’clock this afternoon, I can no longer make that claim. Today, I wrote the final words, an epilogue, to my zombie novel, Nowhere to Hide.

Don’t get me wrong…the manuscript is not complete. There is editing to be done, some discontinuities that need to be addressed, some scenes may be omitted completely, and new ones could very well be added. But for all intents and purposes, I have a finished novel. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has lots of (I hope) interesting characters, and plenty of conflict, suspense, and emotion. It may have some errors and some scenes that don’t stand up to critique, but it is a complete story that, if read, will make sense. It concludes.

I cannot express the level of excitement this fills me with. Let me repeat this point once more: this is the first fully original story I have ever written, beginning to end. How freakin’ awesome is that? I know for a lot of people editing is the worst part of writing, but right now it seems like a happy daydream because I have a completed story to edit!

Look out, world! This novel is one major step closer to being published, and this writer is one immense step closer to earning the title of ‘author’.

Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?

I’ve been a little busy lately, what with the hubby coming home, and preparing for my upcoming trip to my new job. I was subjected to a drug test on Monday (always fun), and had to take my Construction Safety course yesterday, so this is the first time I’ve really sat down at my computer since before hubby came home.

Regularly scheduled updates will resume at some point, but for now I thought I’d share another drabble. This one comes from a small collection of Harry Potter fanfic drabbles that I wrote a while ago. I was attempting to write a drabble for each important character in the book. I stopped at 18, but maybe I’ll get around to finishing the series someday.

Anyway, here’s the one I did for Harry:

It was quiet for a moment. Then a earthshaking howl echoed through the house. Harry cringed and sunk himself deeper into the space between the bath and the sink in the washroom.

He couldn’t understand what he’d done…one minute the cookie jar was on top of the refrigerator where it always was, the next it was on the floor, spilling out more cookies than logically could have fit in it. There must have been a hundred chocolate chips all over the floor.

There came another howl and thundering footfalls up the stairs.

Uncle Vernon didn’t like chocolate chip cookies.

iWrite

I’ve never been an Apple fangirl. I’ve always thought the Mac laptops were pretty and perhaps a little more suitable for artistic types, but the price tag always seemed a little insane to me. I mean, in the end, it’s just a computer. Different operating system, yes, maybe a bit different on the inside as well, but still just a computer.

That said, I am an iPhone junky. I can’t say I wouldn’t have been just as happy with an Android-based phone, because I’ve never spent enough time on one, but my husband got me an iPhone for this past Christmas and I absolutely love it. Some days I have a hard time convincing myself to put it down and do little things like eating and bathing.

So it was only a matter of time before I started searching for apps specifically designed for writers. In the past month or so I’ve read through dozens of lists created by fellow app-using writers and I’ve downloaded every free app I could find (I’m not cheap, I swear, I just find it hard to justify paying for an app before I can actually see if it’s going to be useful to me). I’ve downloaded everything from time-management apps, to apps meant to help keep track of manuscript submissions, to word processors (seriously? Are people seriously writing entire novels on their iPhone?). I’ve since deleted many of these apps as I found them either unhelpful, unintuitive, or just plain unlikable. But there are a few I’ve held on to and I thought I’d share them in case anyone is interested in using their own iPhone (or alternate smartphone, in the case of some of these apps) as a writing extension.

WriteChain
There isn’t much to this app, but it was one of the first ones I downloaded because the premise is very satisfying for a tracking junkie like me. Basically this app allows you to set your daily word count goal and submit your daily word counts. For each day that you succeed in your goal the program adds a link to your ‘chain’. It’s a self-motivation kind of thing. 🙂

Dragon Dictation
This app works on speech recognition software. You speak to it like you would to one of those handheld recorders, and it translates your speech into text, that can presumably then be copied and pasted to wherever you need it. I haven’t used it much yet, but I suspect it would be great for quickly putting an idea to ‘paper’ for later use.

Wikipanion
An app version of Wikipedia, excellent for spur-of-the-moment research. As with anything on Wikipedia though, you’ve got to take the info you find with a grain of salt!

SimpleMind+
I haven’t put this one to too much use yet since I’m at the final stages of the novel I’m working on, but I can definitely see it being useful in the future. This is a mind-mapping app that allows you to create little trees of info and link them together, building a little ‘map’ of information for future use in your story.

Daytum
Not specifically designed for writers, but useful just the same, Daytum basically allows you to keep track of…whatever. You give it a type of data to track, say ‘Words Written’, and if you so choose you can further categorize, say ‘Blogging’ or ‘Novel’, then input your count. I’m using it to keep track of my word count (as seen in my clever example). Whereas Writechain only counts words as one quantity, Daytum allows me to break it down into what those words were put toward, so I can see if I’m spending enough time on my novel as opposed to making constant blog entries. *cough*

So there you have it. Of the (at least) 30 or so apps I tried out, these are the ones who made the cut for me. Please feel free to share any apps that you’ve come across that are great tools for the iPhone junkie writer. I’d be happy to try out some more!!