The following blog post acts like a diary and carries the personal thoughts of Elder Prince, founder of Blossomsoft Games.
These days, everything I write, including my ebook projects, is in Notepad2e. This special github fork is maintained by an online friend from Russia, who has done an amazing job adding features that make this version indispensable for me. Check out ProgerXP’s GitHub logs; the screenshots on his Github page clearly show how much smoother the workflow is with Notepad2e.
Honorable mention.
I also collaborated with ProgerXP to create my favorite tool, Stagsi, which is crucial for my projects. For instance, I use Stagsi to manage the versioning of my book covers as shown in this screenshot:
Notepad2e, perfect for novel projects.
For my novel projects, flat text files are the ideal writing tool. My master source is always a .txt file. Keeping things fast and simple is key. I use a bit of markdown, but I keep it extremely minimal and straightforward.
One reason I love flat files is that they’re the easiest format to control programmatically when needed.
Current obstacle.
All popular eBook converters prefer a .doc file as the starting point, unfortunately.
I don’t enjoy working with .doc or .odt formats; they feel awkward and bulky. I love when my files open instantly in a nanosecond, without waiting for a pointless UI to load every time I click on a document. Given that I need to open my files constantly to edit them, the .txt format is the best solution.
Small workaround.
I decided to develop a small C# WinForms tool that converts txt files to doc files, then allowing me to use existing converters like Calibre (or other online solutions from actual distributors) to transform them into epub, mobi, and pdf formats.
I’m hoping this simple solution will do the trick in the long run, as I definitely don’t have extra time to develop a full engine for deploying ebooks to all formats. Calibre certainly lives up to its reputation, so all I need to do is generate a .doc file from a .txt file using customized coding instructions.
In closing.
Working on book projects is definitely easier and faster than working on game projects. There are still technical issues to overcome, but I believe once a solution is developed, it can be reused for all future writing projects.
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