The Writer’s Keeper-Organizer

As along-time professional writer I need a place to keep copies of the hundreds of articles and book chapters that I write each year.

Where as a writer do you store all your texts that are easy to find when you need them?

On the Macintosh computer we have universal search for everything on our hard disk called Spotlight, which searches for words in texts or titles also. That search brings then a list of files to choose from on my search word.

But where are my hundreds of written articles and chapters?

They are in MacJournal!

MacJournal is a highly reliable article organizer, that can now store images for you as well, which means when you research on the web you can take web pages right into MacJournal. I take a text copy of web text and paste it in. And I drag the webpage address right into the open page in MacJournal where I want it.

Thus if I am doing a report for writers, I write it in MacJournal and open all the web pages of the software I am reporting on. Then I drag the six links into my MacJournal based article.

So for writers doing research for each chapter of a novel you plan your novel with say 12 Chapters, title them, think of a theme for each chapter and scene locations. Develop a list of 10 key words for each chapter. Put them in the search engines and come up with webpages. The pages you like, then you take those links into that MacJournal Chapter page you have created. When ready to write out your chapter, go to MacJournal and review the links to the research you have done so your imagination is flowing!

Why MacJournal and not some other software?

I have used MacJournal for years, and am always checking out other Mac software for any improved way of keeping collected all my writings. I have not found a better way than MacJournal. Dan Schimpf the designer makes frequent updates and improvements. He listens to my suggestions and sometimes they come in.

The MacJournal system is Journals and Entries. Journals are a collection category title, what folders are on the Mac. Entries are text articles.

The point is to organize for writers the no sweat way to find that article or chapter you wrote last year quickly. MacJournal also has two kinds of search engines, one for words inside an entry, and one to cover all entries. You also have back and forward arrows so if you work on ten articles in a day, as sometimes I do, you can press arrows to immediately see them for review or revision, or just to be proud of your work output for the day. I review work because I don’t have the kind of memory that remembers details from the past.

Writing your original text? What word processor should you use?

Does your word processor give a full screen function in blue background to be easy on the eyes? McJ gives this.

Does your word processor give automatic scrolling? McJ gives this, with easy stop and continue. This function is excellent for reviewing what you have written that day and giving it a correct.

Going from full screen to the regular screen panel to see your Journals and Entries is one-click, as is going into full screen.

If you are into blogging, which is good for writers to do to keep touch with their readers, then MacJournal has direct upload of text that you write, with images, from MacJournal.

I write all my articles in MacJournal but not my book chapters because with a book I want to see continuity of chapters in a quick scroll through.

However, I always save an extra copy of a chapter I have just written in MacJournal. I have done this in another program also, called CopyRight, but CR is not as simple and easy to use, so give me no advantages.

I use WriteItNow organizing software to plan out all the elements of a book’s chapters, write some original text there, but go to Mellel as a good word processor for writing a whole book because it has blue, easy-on-the-eyes background, and an easy styling function to make chapters and sub-titles.

But to prepare text for a pdf download of a book to be downloaded rom my webpages I still use Word 2004 because it has formatting options I need, and I know Word well from the past.

That’s it. If you saw my MacJournal list of Journals it might amaze you how many I have. Just checked! 134 Journals. I don’t put journals within journals but you could. I like to see all of mine. Within each of these Journals are usually around 10 entries. That’s a lot of subject matter to keep track of! But I can easily do it! Each entry is dated so I can keep track of recent and older articles. You can color-code Journals and Entries. Do a multi-entry search for a key subject word and MacJournal spills out the relevant entries from any relevant journals for you! Nice.

There are other functions but these are the main functions I use as a writer. The price is entirely reasonable for what you get. MacJournal is sold through

Dan keeps working on improvements. All’s well in the world. Well, almost. Thank God for Good Software!