NaNoWriMoing with yWriter for PC and Android

I wrote before about my little Samsung laptop that is probably eight years old now is slowing down. It takes so long to power on lately, I was concerned it was getting ready to die. Since NaNoWriMo is upon me, I wanted to make sure I had a reliable way to write when I'm not at home. Buying a new, or even a used replacement laptop was a bigger expense than I could make right now, so I bought a bluetooth keyboard and planned to use it with my phone.

I originally thought I would type in Google Docs because I know I can use that on both my desktop at home, and on my phone, but before November began, I decided to just research if there might be a better option. I found yWriter, and decided to give that a try.

I'm glad I played around with both the PC and android app versions of yWriter in advance of NaNoWriMo starting because it took me a few days to figure out how to sync the two versions. Being able to write on my phone while out, then continue on my PC when I was home was key to my whole plan of living without my laptop, so it was the most important feature to me.

yWriter still actually does (or can, there are other methods too) use Google docs to sync between devices. Both the PC version and the android app save to Google docs. They do so in slightly different ways, and since I'm not super tech savvy, it took me a little while to figure out how to get them to do so. Now that I have, however, it works great.

There are lots of bells and whistles in yWriter that I'm not using. There are outlining tools, and scene breakdowns, and character lists, etc. I already had my outline ready to go for November, and didn't want the extra work of putting it all into yWriter, but looking around in the program, there are some things I'm looking forward to trying out with other books down the road.

Even better, the PC version of yWriter is free, and the android app only cost $4.99. So far, I have to say it was money well spent.

Today on our weekly library trip, my kids finished looking for books and found me typing away on my phone with my snazzy new keyboard and both commented how 'cool' the setup was. Considering all the tech these kids have grown up with, I took that as a huge compliment.