Working On Me

I totally agree this is a great idea. I just use a text editor (I like EditPad: There's a free and a pro version, and also there are tons of other great text editors).

I have it in my Windows Quick Launch area. Have had for years.

After getting my thoughts out (or working on script/code), I can just cut and paste it where I need it, like in my beloved OpenOffice.org writer. It's now as good as Word was in say 1997/2000. And who the heck needed more features than that anyway?

Besides, I use tons of tables and OpenOffice.org does a better job of it due to its XML file structure.

Okay, enough geek speech.

Yes. Plain text is best for writing!

Speeking of which, if you ever want a GREAT free tool for writing a book which would be just about perfect for electronic journaling too, try this free software designed for writing science fiction writing by an Ozzie science fiction writer.

Makes plain text and/or rich text backups automatically, can reorganize chapters and scenes, and works easier than pro software suites in my opinion.

yWriter (now in version 4):

What's so special about yWriter?
I really struggled over my first novel because I wrote whole slabs of text into a great big word processor file and tried to make sense of the whole thing at once. I then tried saving each chapter to individual files with great long descriptive filenames, but moving scenes around was a nuisance and I couldn't get an overview of the whole thing (or easily search for one word amongst 32 files).

Thanks to my publisher, you can download my first novel here. However, as a programmer I'm used to dealing with projects broken into source files and modules, and I never lose track of my code. I decided to apply the same working method to my novels ... and it was just what I needed.

A scene is a pleasant chunk to work on - small and well-defined, you can slot them into your novel, dragging and dropping them from one chapter to another as you interleave strands from different viewpoint characters and work out the overall flow of your book. You can also drop a scene completely if you've written yourself into a dead end, without feeling you've ground to a complete halt.

...

The author has other great software, including a plain text book reader which turns the Gutenberg project into an onscreen paperback with your choice of paper.

That's good to know. Thanks.

Ray