I am in love with the cloud. There, I said it.
I am a writer, Â and I love having the freedom to access my documents anywhere, anytime and from anyplace.
I say this because I’ve seen several posts recently (well, even before recently) extolling the virtues of Scrivener writing software. Â I can’t say whether Scrivener is the best thing since sliced bread or not, since I haven’t used it, but I will say, I won’t be using anything I can’t access from the cloud.
As a ninja mom, my life is such that I end up taking my kids a lot of places. Sometimes I’m actively involved, while others, I have to be on the sidelines waiting. During those times, I’ll often pull up my WIP on my phone and review it. I like making notes, flagging things to research and generally figuring out what I need to do the next time I’m at a computer to sit down and write. Now, I could travel with a laptop, but then battery life  and memory become issues (my memory–to bring it with me, to bring it home, not to leave  it in the car in 100 degree heat[probably 120-160 degrees inside the car]). So, I love being able to pull up my story on an app on the phone.
Part of me wonders if it’s just me. Whenever I say to someone I access my data on the cloud, they look at me like I’ve got three heads. Has the NSA scared everyone away from using the cloud? Or am I just a nutcase.
For me, it works really great. It gives me a chance to review things from the previous day and get in the mindset for writing, so that when I do sit down to write, I’m ready to go from second one. I’ve also never had issues with loss. I occasionally download versions of my cloud stuff to my computer or a thumb drive, but I’ll be honest, I’ve had fewer problems with cloud losses than I’ve ever had with a computer.
Anyone else a cloud enthusiast?
I adore the cloud. It’s convenience and security all in one.
It’s also great for paranoid-backup-people. My Scrivener auto-saves every two seconds, backs up in near real time to my cloud drive, and backs up more slowly to my whole-computer backup service. It’s really, really hard to lose a revision or fresh pages now.
That said, my goal is to find an Android app that will let me write on the move in Scrivener. I’ve heard rumors it’s possible with a Mac and iOS mobiles, but nothing yet for PC and Android. I’m waiting.
(Stopped by via the Indies Unlimited hop 🙂 )
Well, I’d certainly consider scrivener if I could use it from the cloud with a phone app. And thanks for stopping by from IU. 🙂
Thanks a bunch; I’ll check it all out.
RJ, thanks for a great post. I’ve never used the cloud; how do you start? Do you worry about hackers getting into your data? It does seem that it would be infinitely easier than remembering to take flash drives everywhere. Thanks!
I don’t worry about hackers, as I don’t think anyone really cares to hack into my account. Most hackers want financial information, not stories.
As for how to start, it depends on what you want to do. For the cloud, you can go completely cloud and use something like Google Drive (free). You set up an account and then you write stuff online. If you download the Google Drive software, Google will automatically sync the stuff on the cloud to your computer. If you don’t download the Drive software, all your writing remains on the cloud unless you manually download it.
Microsoft, I believe, also has a cloud service, but I’m not familiar with it.
DropBox also allows you to back stuff up to the cloud and you can access it from multiple computers/phones and share it. For Dropbox, you need to download their software for each machine you want to use.
For Google, you don’t need to download any software (which I like). You can access it from any machine via the Internet. (To access it on your phone, it’s easier to do by downloading the Google Drive App, but you don’t have to).
Melissa, I hope that helps.