Have you ever though about writing with someone? A bit like school, when the teacher split you in groups to present a story or a poem. If yes, read on and find out how to use the digital cloud to do so.
I have been wanting to do this for a long time. The reason behind my wish is that I love team work, so much exhilarating than working alone behind my computer. Hey, I think many people are like me, if not, why tweet their efforts? Also, there are areas in writing where I lack skills.
Plot is my pitfall. I can write pages, just like I talk, about daily life and the heart’s struggle… but I can’t give it an interesting twist needed to hook the reader to my style. I can’t write a good suspense to save my life. I might have a sprout of an idea, but when I put it down on paper, it lingers and agonizes until its foreseeable death.
Getting a writing partner seemed the right thing for me to do. With time, I have started writers’ groups, writing contests and so on. This was great.Ten years down the line and computers are part of life, everything is portable, smartphones are smarter than me and my mind has trouble wrapping around the facility of using apps. There is no need to understand it all to use it all. Amazing!
Writing on a cloud
A couple of days ago, I started to look for an online community where we could both (me and my writing partner) write and exchange, and get feedback. I know of writing.com and writerscafe.org but I wanted something more user-friendly.
So, my lovely writing partner used her Gmail account. On the drive, she shared our story-to-be. As simple as a click or two and we can write separately or simultaneously. It gets saved and shared automatically.
So, for the two or three old timers (like me!) left out there, who have no clue how to manage all this, here is an 8-step process:
1. Find a writing partner
2. Sign up for a Gmail email account
3. Click on “Drive” (black tool bar, on the top of the page)
4. See the red button on the left “Create” or “Upload” depending on what you want to do.
5. Click once on your document when it is uploaded
6. Click on “More” and “Share”
7. Enter your writing partner email address (Gmail address of course)
8. You are ready to rock n’roll!
Team writing is so easy in this environment, real-time editing, comments, and chat in the sidebar, it is as easy as it gets!
Get writing, now that you too have four hands!
Free Writing in 2013 