Category Archives: Inspiration

Maker: Writer Processes- Using Docs

A slightly different port today. If you’ve been reading for awhile you know that I write novels (4 years winning NaNoWriMo) and I’ve been using Google Docs for this since, well, what seems like forever. I adopted it early on as a way to work on the go and on my breaks at the DayJob, as well as for my thesis in graduate school. My work style has evolved as docs has evolved. Let me go over my current method then we’ll compare how other writers’ tools work in future posts.

Docs is primarily a place to churn out words, and it’s great for drafting large volumes of words especially if you are collaborating with others. Several self published authors I know use docs as their primary writing tool. In part because it’s free and available on all their devices. It also makes it easy to share with beta readers and editors.

Docs has offered an outlining tool that allows you to create an outline and add headings. The headings appear on an outline bar to the left of your work area. You can toggle this on and off as you are working. My current method is to outline in a doc as so: (I apologize for this not looking like the outline style in docs, it did not translate well to WordPress.)

Title of Piece
Chapter 1(This gets a description)
Scene 1 (one sentence description)
Scene 2
Chapter 2
Scene 1
Scene 2
And so on.

This is what it looks like in the writing area.

This is what the outline looks like on the left bar of the page. It looks very much like a table of contents.

All of this appears in the sidebar as soon as I designate them with a heading style. This is easily accomplished with a quick highlight and select.

The side bar lets me navigate through my document quickly and easily. Say I want to work on scene 5 in chapter 10, well I can easily find that one the side bar and navigate to it. Or if I decide to change a character’s last name in chapter 3, and she’s not mentioned again until chapter 10 I can toggle to chapter 10 and leave myself a note, “Don’t forget Jane’s last name is now Dough not Doe.” I can highlight this or use a comment on the chapter title.

How has this worked in practice? Really well. It’s simple and brainless. While I didn’t plot my 2020 NaNoWriMo novel once I started and got an idea of the characters and setting, I plugged in chapter ideas and went back into the story and added in scenes and chapters as I needed them. It was very flexible. I wrote some of the scenes out of order and then cut and pasted them into the spaces where they needed to be. This was easily accomplished by toggling through the chapter and scene headings on the outline bar.

I use a similar method for the blog. I write a long list of the items I have for review, and turn each one into a heading:

AmazonBasics Mechanical Pencil
Wing Sung 601
Jinhao 51A

Super easy and this lets me quickly and easily toggle through my list of items and find them when it comes time to post them to the blog, then it’s a quick copy and paste.

I mentioned in a recent post that docs worked better than ever before for my NaNo win. In past wins I broke my novel up into 10 to 15K docs. After that loading took forever and it wouldn’t register as I typed, then an entire paragraph would slooooowwwwly load. It was enraging. I’d stop typing waiting for the doc to catch up with me. Loading the doc when I opened it would also take forever, the larger the doc the longer it would take. I remember waiting for one doc to load and it took a full five minutes! Not this year, even at 40k words the doc loaded quickly and kept up with my typing. It wasn’t until I hit 45k that I noted longer load times and any lag in what I had typed loading.

Some positives:

It’s free
Available anywhere I take my phone or have access to a computer with wifi.
Works well on all my devices, now that I have docs sideloaded onto my Kindle.
Outlining is fast and easy.
Load times and lag are better than ever before.
Many add ons to make it work better.
Super easy to just open up a doc and write.

Some Negatives:

Moving scenes and chapters is hard if you work out of order, cut and paste can leave you with missing work, create a copy before you cut and paste stuff!
Significant lag times at 50K or more words, even on high speed internet.
Add ons can slow the app way down.
No concentration/typewriter mode. (One of my favorite tools in JotterPad and Dabble.)
No dark mode.
Uses Google Drive storage and does not back up elsewhere, so if google deletes your account, well, you’re SOL.

Obviously this has worked for me thus far. When I mentioned the idea of “if it ain’t broke why try to fix it?” to a friend, she suggested that I might LIKE the ease of use of a few other apps and sites. That the ability to easily drag and drop a chapter like a file is worth learning a new process. I’ve requested review access to a few pieces of writing software and apps. Thus far the learning curve isn’t that high and they are easy to use. More on that in future reviews.

State of the Art: Writing Posts and Other Stuff

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I’m surprised that I’ve never written about my digital writing tools on this blog. I’ll link to the tools and apps you’ll need to recreate my set up.

First I have a low end Lenovo laptop that I use as my main machine when I’m at home and at my desk. I had for a very long time a mid-level Asus that served me well for 7 or so years. The Lenovo is not even half the machine as the Asus. Given that most of my work is writing with some minimal image processing, which I largely do on my phone, the Lenovo has enough processing power for most of my needs. I’d enjoy being able to do a multicam video set up, but that can wait until later.

When I’m out of the house or even sitting in my reading nook, I use an Amazon Kindle Fire 7 inch (formerly an 8 inch.) The 8 inch has more processing speed and power over the 7 inch and if I had it to do over again I’d buy a second 8 inch instead of the 7inch. The 7 inch is the better machine for reading, so win some and lose some.

I pair this with a bluetooth keyboard, mine is the no longer available AmazonBasic BT Keyboard for android devices. If I ever need to replace it I’ll go for this one. I have a nice thick heavy duty case for this keyboard. I used to just throw a previous version into the laptop pocket of my backpack. I killed it.

The results of this, even with the cases, is a nice portable set up that is very lightweight and can travel anywhere.

I have spoken about my philosophy of NEVER writing on my work computer and only ever on my breaks. This helps me stick to that philosophy. Even if I don’t have my tablet with me, I can pair that keyboard with my phone and work in an ultra lightweight manner. Using your work computer leaves you open to all sorts of legal issues. A friend of mine had many issues when he worked on his novel on his work computer. His job had many down periods and it was a common occurrence, and accepted practice, for employees to work on school work and other nonwork related things when on the clock. But his bosses didn’t seem to think that working on a novel in those down times was okay. When he left the company it was very unpleasant and they made noise about coming after his novel and money made from it.

Anyway. To make the Kindle fire a good tool for writing you need to sideload the Google Play store, Drive and Docs. I also use the app JotterPad on my Kindle Fire. Sadly, JotterPad isn’t available for my laptop or I’d use it there as well. They do have an online version which does not seem like it is able to link to my account. JotterPad syncs across the cloud and saves to DropBox or Docs. They’ve integrated a lot of new features which you can learn about in app and on their website. I don’t use them YET, but might double down and more out of the minimal paid version of the app I’ve been using for years at ths point. Docs also syncs everywhere faster than anything else I’ve used.

In the years I’ve been using Docs as my main location for drafting, it has gotten leaps and bounds better. In the past my novels needed to be broken up into 10k word lumps, compiled into one final dreaft at the end for speed of loading and processing. In the past, loading took forever on any speed of the internet. Currently I’ve drafted my entire 50k nano novel into one single doc and while it takes a moment to load, it no longer takes 3 or 4 minutes, simply 30 seconds at most. Even on my older Android phone it is faster than ever before.

Anyway, once you have sideloaded the Play store you can load other drafting apps to the Fire, and use it to read. For me it has become an all in one machine I take with me everywhere. Battery life with BT is an issue, but a small portable battery pack solves that issue much of time. I have 2 that will fully charge the Kindle twice before needing to be recharged. No links to either since I have no idea of their brand or where my partner sourced them. I inherited them after she broke them and I repaired them.*

I will note that I do not have ANY social media on the Fire. I’ve disabled Alexa and eliminated pretty much everything but the reading apps, a couple of music apps, a Pomodoro timer, and the writing apps. I’m pretty weak willed when it comes to distractions and eliminating the ability to easily scroll over to FB or Insta keeps me on track. Continue reading →

Maker: Pencil Sharpeners in Jars

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A friend of the blog (Lisa S.) sent me a cute little Zebra pencil sharpener in a glass jar. It wasn’t working well and she wondered if I could fix it. Well, yes and no. The lid was cracked and the sharpener was a short point.

I tossed the lid and pulled the screws from the sharpener. I then rooted around my recycle bin and found a lid that fit the cute glass jar. I then drilled out a hole with a step bit. I then attached a fresh new Apsara Long Point sharpener that I had hacked. I added 2 screws to hold it in place. Perfect.

This got me thinking, could I attach a sharpener in other small glass jars in my recycling bin? Or other jars?

The answer is yes. I pulled a bunch of tiny jars and drilled out holes in the lids. Then I glued in the sharpeners and added screws for additional durability. The little sharpener jars make me so happy. I’ve also attached the sharpeners to the lids of an espresso take out cup.

I ordered another box of apsara long point sharpeners and a box of tiny screws to make these. I’m having a lot of fun. Now I need to find an assortment of small glass jars.

Week Links

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Johnny has again, encapsulated my feelings about the tool being tools.

This podcast is recordings of things, they call it field recordings. Loosely people stand in a field and record the noise, except it’s not all fields. One of the most recent is a recording of a train going by the recorder. Neat. Field Recordings.

I haven’t mentioned it recently, but MyNoise is a KILLER website where the owner of said site records and makes background noise. Maybe you really want to go to a café and work, but you know Covid. Big sigh. MyNoise can make it sound like you’re in a café, or sitting next to a river, on the beach, in a dungeon (no judgement) or even taking a walk through the woods. It’s a donation based site and everyone who likes it should use it and pass the guy who makes it a few coins. I mention the café noises because I brewed myself a coffee put the café noise on in the background along with some Tangerine Dream and worked on my NaNo novel and it was ALMOST like being in the café.

State of the Art: Making the Zine

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Making a zine is usually a pretty easy endeavor. You write up the contents, do your layout and print and bind. And most of the time it goes smoothly.

Not this time. I’m not sure what happened to my head when I was collating the covers and sheaf of paper that makes the single signature of the pages, but in half of the zines I bound (60!) I reversed the sheaf, so the first page was 9 and page 1 and 16 were in the middle of the book. UGH. I didn’t notice until I had stapled all of them and folded half the zines that I’d already stapled.

I pulled 120 staples with a pair of needle nose pliers. I use a jig to staple so I was easily able to get most of the staples in the original holes.

Mostly this was annoying because it added about 45 minutes of work and a fair amount of aggravation that I hadn’t checked to be sure the sheaf were aligned properly. Lesson learned, the next zine will get double and tripled checked before stapling.

Also, you can get the latest copy of Useful Journaling on my Ko-Fi page here.

Review: Pencil Revolution The Zine

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I love zines. I’ve loved them for years and years. I’ve made many of my own and collected a lot of them. Sadly I’ve lost the couple of hundred that I had collected. So when Johnny of Pencil revolution, the blog told me he was starting a zine, I got excited. I had no idea what he had planned, but I knew it would be good. You see, Johnny can write, and it is always a joy to read a zine written by someone with a grasp of language and a true joy of their subject matter.

Johnny did not disappoint. His physical manifestation of Pencil Revolution is both precious and informative. He’s made a tiny little zine so packed with pencil history I’m not sure how it can be held in such a tiny package. He uses a single sheet book format that folds up into a sweet little pocket sized book. It would even fit into the pocket of a pocket sized moleskine!

The first 4 issues are all about the history of pencils. With any other writer you might find this dry or boring, but Johnny’s writing style pulls you in and holds your attention. Which I might say, can be really difficult when writing about the history of pencils. (Ahem, looking at other histories of pencils.) He’s clear, conversational, and a bit funny. If you enjoy Pencil Revolution the blog you’ll love Pencil Revolution the Zine, plus it’s inexpensive!

Week o’ Links

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One of the many things I left behind when I stopped blogging as much was my link love posts. Since I’ve been doing more reading of blogs (yay for more time?) I have stuff I want to share again. Don’t expect this to be regular, nah week links will be totally irregular.
I was on Erasable having a conversation about NaNoWriMo with Johnny of Pencil Revolution and Harry of Home Work and other goodies. It was a great conversation.

Brad of a little podcast called The Pen Addict mentioned Useful Journaling, Pencil Revolution, and The Word Distro on his podcast. Awesome, everyone should read zines, especially mine, and Johnny’s and Ed’s.

I’ve been reading about bookbinding again. When did I ever stop? Alisa Golden <3 posted this single sheet binding technique that makes me think about zine possibilities… Just sayin’. Also, a snake book, a pretty common structure that I’ve seen again and again in many books. Here’s a nice art journal format.

The Comp book reviews keep pulling folx over to using the finest cheapest of stationery goods- the composition book. The Write Experience has the right experience with a classic- the Pen+Gear composition notebook all the way up in Canada.

On Making Things: Return to Roots

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If you’ve been reading CSS for more than the last few years, you realize this blog didn’t start out as a review site. I started out blogging about a break up and my attempts to find my footing in my new single life. It quickly morphed into an exploration of art, journaling, and bookbinding. Soon the old title of the blog no longer fit and I chose Comfortable Shoes Studio as an homage to a gag project I’d made in college. I moved my blogging to CSS and the transition was easy.

Here I started to write about my art and other projects. I was open about sales, ranted about eBay and PayPal fees increasing and all the other issues that occurred with being an artist and craftsperson online. Through all of it I was open and transparent about the business side of things and about the process of making art and art journaling.

Reviews were (are) a side effect of making art and writing. I did product reviews because I was making art and using the materials and readers had questions.

Then life got complicated. Work got complicated. I went back to school. I changed jobs, a couple of times. I made less art, but I had a lifetime of using art materials and could write reviews with much less effort than writing about making art, which I was making less and less of. As for bookbinding? I do less of that than ever because my wrists and hands ache after a binding session, the act of pulling a needle through paper and board causes pain like no other. So I just don’t do as much of it as I used to, it hurts too much, and if I’m honest, it hurts a lot to think about not being able to bind like I once did.

I’ve gone back and looked at some of my old posts, posts where I’ve “shown my work” when it comes to art, zines, and the business of art. Now that I’m in a more stable place in my life I hope to reclaim some of my writing about more than just reviews.

I wanted to write a bit about the creation of Useful Journaling. While it is a culmination of a lifetime of journaling, it is also about teaching myself how to paginate and do layout for printing and binding. In the past I have always done my layout with a physical original. I’d cut and trim things to a paper copy and make a first really good copy of that which I’d print from. I really like the physical aspect of making a paper original copy. There is something really nice about sitting down with a glue stick and craft knife and making that first original.

I like learning things, I saw learning how to do layout on the computer as a challenge. And wow is it. I hate and love it. I love how clean it can make the flow of words from page to page. I write all the zine in one doc and cut and paste it into Publisher* and it just flows through the document. Easy. I then add in the various elements I’d use glue and scissors for a physical copy but instead I photograph them and crop in the computer. It’s similar skills but all in the computer. It was a challenge to learn how to bring it into the computer but I know I can also make a physical original which I can scan and turn into a PDF and print from that.

Another challenge is printing. I really like the idea of a color laser printer for the cover and inserts. But WOW are they a total pain in the ass. Of course the one I was gifted is old and I needed to order new parts and do a thorough deep clean, but it hates printing on smooth cardstock. HATES it. So future issues will use coverstock, which means I can possibly add 4 more pages.

Which brings me to another thought out aspect of UJ, the size. I wanted the zine to fit into the pocket of an A5 notebook, so it had to be pocket notebook size or a quarter sheet of US letter sized paper. I also wanted it to ship for the cost of one US stamp in the US, even if I added extras (and I did) so I went with pocket notebook size. The number of pages was determined by weight, I knew if I went with 16 pages I’d stay below an ounce for that single stamp. The hard part is that I WANT to make it longer. I want to pack in the content. I also wanted to keep the font large enough that it could be easily read. I get frustrated with zine with font sizes that are too small to easily read.

Anyway, I’ll be chronicling more of my art adventures here, but still be writing product reviews, just less of them.
Continue reading →

How To: Fitting an Energel Refill into a Baronfig Squire

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I read once that the older Baronfig Squire pens accepted some gel ink refills. Imagine my surprise when mine did not. Apparently somewhere along the way things were redesigned and the Squire lost the ability to accept a standard gel ink refill. It is non-reversible, but the pen will accept the old refill once the mod is completed.

To do this mod you will need:

A Baron Fig Squire
1/8th drill bit for wood
Skewers and masking tape
Pentel Energel Pen- you need the refill and the spring
Patience
Craft knife

I went through the process of stuffing every gel ink refill I own from Pilot G2 to Pentel Energel to Zebra Sarasa into the pen, and each and every time, blocked. I poked around with a skewer, and found that there is a lip down inside the tip area that holds the narrow tube that holds the pen’s tip. It is snug to stop the refill from rattling around. Since I really like the Energel Pro for sketching doodling and general writing, I measured it against the Schmidt P8126 refill I usually use for the Squire. There was exactly 1mm difference in the diameter of the tubes, and the Energel refill’s tube was roughly 1/8th of an inch.

I decided to do this mod by hand, for many reasons but I did not want to take a chance of removing too much material and damaging the Squire beyond use. I’m not kidding when I say the Adrift is my favorite Squire. I grabbed a brand new 1/8th drill bit intended for wood and taped it to a wooden skewer, yes, masking taped it to a skewer. Again, this was to force me to use a light hand and prevent me from binding up the bit into the metal.

The skewer also allowed my short bit to reach deep into the pen. It is important to point out that you drill the INSIDE of the pen, NOT from the tip in. So drill inside out. While I do not recommend it, if you chose to use a drill press for this mod, you’d need an extra long bit.

I bored the inside a small amount then test fit. Then repeat that until I had bored out roughly ¼ inch or 5mm deeper. I attempted to use the Squire’s spring. It didn’t work with my Energel refill. The Energel spring did work. Even when I went back to the original refill I still needed the Energel spring. The Energel refill will need to be cut between 76 and 78mm from the base of the ink reservoir, not the tip, depending on how far you would like the tip to emerge.

Results? It works perfectly with the Energel refill. The metal part of the Energel tip fits perfectly into the Squire and there is no rattle or more movement than you usually see with a Squire. It’s smooth in deployment, the knock works perfectly and man that gel ink is great.

You might wonder why I went with the Pentel Energel Pro over say a PaperHate Inkjoy or Uniball Signo or even the Sharpie SGel or Zebra Sarasa refill. I really like the Energel Pro for sketching but also writing. It is also the only refill available in a 12-pack. I can buy singles or 2-packs of all of the mentioned refills but I really wanted a 12-pack. When I’m sketching, drawing and even writing a lot, I drain gel ink pens. Buying a 12-pack feels the most economical and ecological. I know a lot of people will buy entire pens and just use the refill. I feel wasteful doing that, so I’m going to stick with buying refills for this pen.

Useful Journaling Issue 1

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It has been awhile since I’ve made a zine. I decided it was time to take the manuscript that I wrote about journaling and work it into something. I’ve taken that old manuscript, torn it apart, lumped pieces of it into themes, and I’m putting those themed chunks and making pocket notebook sized 16 page zines. I chose to make this zine small so it would fit into the back pocket of most A5 or 6×9 inch journals.

The theme of the first issue is Simplicity. Each technique explored is deceptively simple but can lead to wonderfully deep and rich content. This first issue explores an evening mind dump, gratitude, and using prompts. Future issues will explore fear of the white page, picking out materials, and more involved journaling techniques.Useful Journaling is $2.50 plus 50 cents for shipping in the US and $1 worldwide. For now it is only available via my Ko-Fi shop. Ko-fi shops are great for creators- they don’t take a cut if you are a Ko-Fi gold member (I am now) and allow the maker to post all sorts of different items for sale. PayPal still takes it’s cut (which is hefty) but this is a step in the right direction for all makers.