Quote:
Originally Posted by BookCat
For writing away from home, I strongly suggest buying and AlphaSmart Neo. These will run for about 700 hours on 3 AA batteries and are extremely portable. You just write on it, then when you get home you can attach it to your computer via usb, put the cursor in your chosen word processor, or notepad and press the Send button: then watch it type onto your screen.
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I second this. Even if you're at home the AlphaSmart Neo allows you to write without worrying about format. For me the writing process and the formatting process are often separate because, if I do them together, I worry how my document looks instead of worrying about getting the words down. Formatting comes with the editing process. If I'm not at home, I've found that I can save what I write in the AlphaSmart by sending it to my Fire Tablet (I copy it into Simplenote, and then it's available on my desktop or laptop). I use Simplenote because, unlike Evernote, it's just straight text, which means it flows into your word processor. You'll need an OTA USB adapter for connecting the AlphaSmart to your Fire. You can also use the the AlphaSmart to type directly into Simplenote (or another text editor, like JotterPad). Or you can get a cheap BlueTooth keyboard to work with the Fire.
If I'm at home I usually use Jstar (a text editor with WordStar keystrokes). And then, if I want to "prettify" my text, I'll copy it into LibreOffice Write, which can save in Microsoft .doc or docx format. There's a ton of good (free) choices.
As for Scrivener ... I've tried to like it, but it seems overly complex for me. I think you would have to be a much more disciplined outliner than I am to really make use of its features. But a lot of people love Scrivener and it's really not that badly priced.