99/12/06 - The Palm Isn't Just A Writer's Tool; It's An Organizer Too!I had planned on writing a column responding to the feedback I've received from the "Free Textware" article, but it still needs a little simmering. Maybe next week. In the meantime, keep those emails coming! What I do have this week is something (hopefully) genuinely useful. Writers need to be organized, and most aren't. At least, most could use some improvement. I don't know if it's a right-brained creative thing, but most writers aren't the most organized people in the world. Unfortunately, writers need to be organized more than most other professions, due to the fact that there's really no boss looking over your shoulder, no convenient corporate mission statement to give you direction, nothing but yourself to keep you on track and doing what you're supposed to be doing. If that describes you, maybe I can help. In addition to all the great writing software I talk about in my book, the Palm has some pretty great software to keep you organized, too. I know most of you are thinking, "duh, Captain Obvious," but I'm not talking about the built-in apps. They're nice, don't get me wrong, but not industrial-strength enough for a lone writer on the go. The first thing I'd recommend is a good relational database. I don't have enough room here to go into a ton of detail on what relational databases are, but basically, imagine you have a database with three tables (each table looks a lot like a spreadsheet, but without the icky numbers): Works, Publishers and Submissions. In the Works table, you have all the stuff you've written listed out by title, date written, length, and any other information specific to the work that you'd like to include. In the Publishers table, you have all the publishers listed that you deal with, including addresses and contact information. In the Submissions table, you tie the Works and Publishers tables together, showing which works you submitted to which publishers, and with what results. You could optionally add an Agents table into the mix too. And the above example is exactly why you need a relational database. The big RDBMS's (Relational DataBase Management Systems, in compu-speak) for the Palm are HanDBase and ThinkDB. HanDBase is older, more established and has more predefined database templates to get you started. ThinkDB (my personal preference) is faster, easier to use and great for creating your own databases from scratch. Download 'em both, try them out and decide for yourself, but you need one of them. Or do you? Another piece of software that came out recently (last weekend, as a matter of fact) is ActionNames 4.0. ActionNames replaces the built-in Datebook, ToDo List and Address Book, all in one application. It's got a clean, intuitive interface, and can be had for the low, low price of twenty bucks (the same price, incidentally, as HanDBase and ThinkDB). But that's not the cool part. ActionNames supports repeating and regenerating ToDo items. It lets you attach an alarm to ToDos as well as Appointments. It has a split screen view that shows you your Appointments and ToDos at the same time. It uses the same data as the built-in apps, so it syncs to the PC just like they do. But that's not the cool part. The cool part (just when you though I'd never get to it) is that it provides full integration between the datebook, todo list and the address book. What does that mean? It means you can have a ToDo category called Submissions, and an Address Book category called Publishers. You have all your publishers in the address book. You create a new ToDo in the Submissions category called "Submit Great American Novel", and you link it, right there in ActionNames, to the publisher you're sending it to. When you have your submission package ready, you send it off and check off the ToDo in ActionNames. When you do that, it automatically creates a note for that publisher in your address book, and inserts the day and what you submitted into the note. That way, you can tell just by looking at the note attached to a publisher everything you've ever submitted to them. If it works better for the way you think, you could have address book entries for your works, and have the publishers you've submitted to appear in the note for the work instead. About the only thing this system doesn't have that the RDBMS idea does is the ability to look at it either way. With ActionNames, you're tracking works by publisher or publishers by work, but not both. With ThinkDB you could run reports to show you either way. Well, I'm out of space again, so I'll sign off now and go back to checking my email for people telling me how brilliant/stupid I am for suggesting that authors give away their work for free. More on that next week. Unless I think of something else. Or not. See why I need an organizer? |