#butterdocs

[nanowrimo]

Write Smarter, Not Harder: 5 Ways to Conquer Chaotic Writing

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. ButterDocs, a 2023 NaNoWriMo sponsor, is an all-in-one writing app built for productivity, collaboration, and a more joyful writing experience. Today, the folks at ButterDocs share a few tips on organizing your writing to meet your goals:

NaNoWriMo is about to start, and you're champing at the bit to get to 50,000 words. But that's no easy feat! Because life doesn't stop when NaNoWriMo starts.

You're still going to have climb a mountain of chaos to reach your goal: Chaos like not being able to find your notes and outlines when you need them since they're scattered across multiple apps, or the constant lure of internet distractions.

And of course, once NaNoWriMo ends, the writing process continues. You'll need to get feedback, be able to actually easily take advantage of that feedback, and make revisions (especially if your ultimate goal isn't just a rough draft, but a polished novel).

Here are five tips from ButterDocs to beat the chaos and make your writing workflow less work and more flow.

1. Know what you're about to do.

We know you want to start maximizing your word count from Day One, but you'll thank yourself on Day Twenty if you lay the groundwork for yourself. Take some time to organize your research, develop your characters, lay out your major plot points, and consider your themes.

You don't need to buy and learn advanced plotting software. A digital whiteboard can be as intuitive as pinning index cards to a cork board.

2. Write in the best environment for you.

You're about to spend a lot of time writing. It's a good idea to get comfortable.

Think about what environment you write best in. Do you need the hubbub and energy of a busy coffee shop? Or the serenity of a cozy nook?

Once you find the right place, put the same effort into finding a writing app you'll actually enjoy writing in.

3. Stay in your writing flow.

Focus and dedication during NaNoWriMo is the whole ball game. Lose either, and your chances of hitting 50,000 words are harder.

Whatever your NaNoWriMo goals are, give yourself the best chances to succeed with tools that will help you get and stay focused. A timer, word counter, and goal tracker will help you with timed writing sprints and hitting daily writing goals.

4. Recover from distractions.

Distractions will happen. Chaotic writing aside, the human brain wants to wander for dopamine. And life inevitably gets in the way.

What's important is how you recover. Don't let one distraction or missed writing day snowball into another and another. Give yourself tools that help you get back on track. A simple notification to come back to your writing can be a big help.

5. Pull others in to help you move forward.

You may be participating in NaNoWriMo as an individual, but know this: you are not alone.

You have the entire NaNoWriMo community, among many other writing communities and groups you can turn to for any genre of writing.

When you feel stuck or need feedback on a draft, don't be afraid to ask for help. Just be sure to invite people into a writing app where you have control over the collaboration.

ButterDocs Early Access + NaNoWriMo Resources

Conquer chaotic writing by using a writing app built for exactly that. With ButterDocs, you can plan, write, share, and edit your writing all in one place, without the chaos. It's by the team that built Arc Studio, a leading screenwriting app with hundreds of thousands of users.

ButterDocs launches today in early access and we'd love to invite you to check it out for NaNoWriMo.

All NaNoWriMo participants can receive a free year of ButterDocs if you sign up by December 1st, 2023.

We're running a free online event on October 25th for everyone who signs up: "Getting (and Staying) in Your Creative Writing Zone During NaNoWriMo." with Grant Faulkner (Executive Director of NaNoWrimo), Matt Trinetti (founder of London Writers' Salon), and Allison Trowbridge (founder of CopperBooks). If you can't make it, we'll email ButterDocs users the recording afterward.

Visit https://butterdocs.com/NaNoWriMo to learn more about ButterDocs, claim your free account, and enter an exclusive sweepstakes giveaway for NaNoWriMo participants!

[caturdwy]

now that i'm actually planning and writing something on butterdocs, i quite like it. straighforward, incredibly helpful for planning, pretty interface (i like pretty interfaces, okay...). just wish i could upload my own fonts

[definitelyacrow]

Sorry I’ve been inactive but I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year.

There’s a new documents app I’m using since Google docs is kinda sketchy.

So I’m if y’all would look into it cause there’s a give away they’re doing for some neat stuff since it’s a new app. Also if you join now before December 1st you get a free year.

Seriously consider changing where you write if you write since Google might be stealing writings content to feed to an Ai eventually!

[writercole]

A stormy evening would be perfect for editing....

IF MY WORD PROCRSSOR DIDN'T CRASH EVERY TIME I TRIED TO MOVE SOMETHING.

[skellebonez]

Ya'll, I have discovered Campfire Writer and it has changed my fucking life as a writer. I am never going back to any other program I have tried again (except StimuWrite, but that's because wordsprints in that make my brain go brrrr).

I have been looking for ages for a cross device program I can have on my computer and phone that won't mess up formatting, and this delivers. BUT IT ALSO HAS SO MUCH EXTRA SHIT.

Dashboard of a quick project overview.

Character profiles.

Location and item profiles.

Research tab.

MAPS.

Relationship mapping.

Tabs for magic, species, languages, religion, anything you can think of for complex world building.

A BUILT IN TIMELINE FEATURE.

And this thing is both FREE (with limitations but still) and has CUSTOMIZABLE THEMES?

Bruh. After trying yWriter, Novlr, ButterDocs, Scrivener, Lore Forge, and ZohoWriter (and even more I can't remember right now) to find a replacement for Google Docs... I am dropping all of them for THIS.

[tabswrites]

Yikes…do not use Butterdocs, friends.

[zmwrites]

anyone tried ButterDocs yet? thoughts?

[maureen-corpse]

So during NaNoWriMo I used ButterDocs, a new program billed as an alternative to Google Docs, to write my novel. I really liked some aspects of it; it had just the right balance of simplicity and thingamabobs for me (I lean more toward simplicity).

Now the pricing for ButterDocs has been announced, and holy moly. Full price is $360 per year, and because I got early NaNoWriMo access, I can get in at $100. But folks, a Microsoft 365 subscription that comes with Microsoft Word and OneNote and OneDrive storage and other programs is $70 per year. So. I'm not so sure I fork over that kind of cash, here.

[deandacosta]

ButterDocs https://t.co/6awZDAiLgT

http://dlvr.it/T32THG

[imbrisvastatio]

trying butterdocs too bc it's free for a year so why the fuck not

every year I forget that 4thewords gives a month with a nano code until I just pay for it

[maureen-corpse]

NaNoWriMo update: I have written a minimum of 1,667 words each day so far! But it has not been without its trials. On Thursday I wrote my words and my computer was giving me signs of being difficult, so I backed up everything to a flash drive because I thought I would have to manually sync stuff later. This turned out to be sort of true, in that I ended up with some sort of catastrophic failure and having to reinstall Windows. (It gave me the option of saving my personal files, and as luck would have it, that worked, so I had my backups that were on that laptop as well.)

I decided to use ButterDocs for this year’s tale of women pretending to be men when they really just want to be women kissing women because someone I know suggested it, and ButterDocs is offering a free year for NaNoWriMo participants. Thoughts so far: maybe I should set the local backup location to a flash drive? In case of connectivity issues followed by endless blue screens?

Other thoughts: I am bad at evaluating novel-writing programs, but this one doesn’t have a ton of extra stuff that I found ultimately tedious in other ones I tried (such as make your character and tag the scene with the character and so on and so forth). (I should clarify that I don’t hate the idea of tagging even individual scenes with characters and important objects or whatever—but I found that for me it could get clunky and in the way.) It allows me to make notes and I can tag sections with those notes. And since I’m writing mainly in one POV, I’m using notes and comments to keep track of non-POV character things that I think are important when it comes up. But also other things, like ideas for what should happen.

[deandacosta]

ButterDocs https://t.co/mZmbp9kL3J

http://dlvr.it/Sxw6Zp

[marsolines]

Found it spamming my emailsss it's Butterdocs. We will see how I like it

Dude what was the name of that screenwriting website that Nanowrimo gave you a year subscription of??? I put my thing in there.... to edit... I forgot what it's called...... what... where is it....