Keeping Notes?

[cliophoto]

Hello

 

I am slowly getting to the point of starting to take notes when I am not writing. Like when out walking, having coffee, or even riding my bicycle.

 

I was wondering what others use to keep track of notes they pickup while out and about. Also how you go about getting notes into a searchable format.

 

I would like to use Storyist for this and before I spend hours setting something up is there any idea the more experinced of the readers of this form can put forward whether this is a good move or should I be looking at another app. It would be good if whatever I choose to use would work on both my iMac and iPad. Do most of the writing on the iPad but like to store things on the iMac for security in case something happens. Paranoid yes.

 

It also needs to be searchable so I can find things again.

 

Thanks

Phil

[marguerite]

Not sure I understand the question. Your Storyist files (on both iPad and Mac) have a Notebook, to which you can add notes that travel back and forth and are immediately searchable within Storyist. Just use the search window at the top right corner instead of the Find command.

 

So the easiest answer is to take the notes in Storyist for iPad and they will transfer back to your Mac whenever you sync or copy the file.

 

If that's not feasible—because you don't have your iPad with you on a walk, say—you can take a note in any plain text app or just on a piece of paper and transfer it to Storyist as soon as possible. (Note that both Storyist for Mac and Storyist for iPad can open RTF files from other programs.)

 

Does that help, or is there some complexity I'm missing?

Best,

Marguerite

[cliophoto]

Hello M

 

Again I think my explanation of what I have in mind was poor.

 

Examples:

You see the name tag of the girl who makes your coffee. Make a note of it, then put it somewhere till you get to your iPad or Mac and enter it in. At a later date you are looking for names the search would find all the female names you have collected. When you decide to use the name, you then modify the note with where you had used it.

 

You hear a couple of people talking while in line for your coffee. Make a quick note of their conversation and the follow the same procedure as above.

 

Sitting the park having coffee, the colour of something or the sound of the wind in the leaves would get written down and follow the procedure above again.

 

And so on.

 

Before you ask, yes I like my coffee, mocha actually. I am Canadain after all, which means our national beverage of choice is hot liquids from Tim Hortons. If you ever get the chance coffee from Tims is a treat you should not miss.

 

Back to the answer. I can see a point in the not too distanct future where I could end up with 100's of different little notes on many different topics. This is where I can see problems beginning. They would end up in an abiss never to be found again which kinda defeats the purpose of keeping notes in the first place. Never have tried this before, have always tried to keep things in my head. There is becoming too much and too many things that get noticed while living my daily life, so I want to start writing things down to give me a chance of remembering them and retrieving them. Thus the question in the first place.

 

Hope that helps explain myself a little more.

 

Sorry for the long winded answer.

Phil

[marguerite]

If you add each note to the notebook in Storyist, Phil, you will be able to find it using the search window in Storyist, so long as you have a memory of which project you were working on at the time. Just use the search window at top right, as I mentioned in my previous post.

 

Personally, I use two collections to store my notes: Research, for historical and cultural information; and Notebook, for everything else. I also make extensive use of Note Groups, to separate, say, Plot Problems from Character Questions and Addenda (Title Page, Synopses, etc.). This helps me find a particular note without using search.

 

But if, to give one example, I decide to change a character's name, I use Edit > Find to change all occurrences in the Manuscript. Then I enter the name in the Storyist search window. Every single instance of that name shows up in the search window that opens above my text, whether in sheets or notes. I can then navigate to a given instance by clicking on it. (This refers to the Mac version—iPad search is not so sophisticated.) So the crucial step is to enter the note in such a way that you include a vital term or phrase for which you can search. So long as you do, you will be fine, no matter how many notes you enter or how much coffee you drink.

 

So in the example you give, you would insert female name before the name. Then, when you were looking for the name, search for female name.

 

An alternative would be to create a Note Group for Female Names and stash all those notes inside that group.

Best,

M

[cliophoto]

Hello M

 

Thank you that was the answer I was looking for. I thought things would work that way but did not want to waste the time getting something going without some idea I had a chance it would work. Did not think of putting something in each note to give an idea what was in it to help the searching. You are brilliant.

 

Another question along the same lines.

 

Would you have a single Storyist project setup just for notes and ideas that way you would not have to remember where you had filed the notes?

 

Thanks

Phil

[marguerite]

You could do that, I guess. I tend to use templates to save collections of notes related to specific series (File > Save as Template), but I do have an Ideas.story file that has as its only purpose the stashing of half-baked ideas for future novels. Could be the perfect place for general notes not linked to a current project.

Best,

M

[tammycravit]

When I'm out and about, I take notes in Evernote on my iPhone, which I can then paste into my Storyist file as appropriate. (I also carry one of these, because sometimes paper is just nicer, but that's another discussion.)

 

As far as what to do with your notes once they get into Storyist, I like Marguerite's ideas.

[Steve E]

I've been using the Notebook for ideas since Storyist 1.x but I also find this invaluable. I use it with this.

-T