What do y'all use to write?

[RepresentingCaution]

My toddler takes everything I try to write with, including my imagination. He went to the moon the other day.

 

[J_Chemist]

My toddler takes everything I try to write with, including my imagination. He went to the moon the other day.

Reckon my mum threatened to beat me to the moon and back a few times. That or straight send me to it to be rid of me for a little while.

 

[Aaqil]

Screams full of pain and anguish.

 

[Stealthy_Enigma]

Screams full of pain and anguish.

It happened to me when I began writing...

I still feel the pain.
˝/\___/\˝
(✿;>ᆺ<;) One entire chapter lost... *uuuuuu*

 

[HelloHound]

my fingers
(just pulling your leg lol)
I type mainly on Google docs so I can ping-pong off between my laptop and my phone, though I do use my notes app for miscellaneous nonsensical comments or worldbuilding and some goofy looking doodles

 

[ReadLight]

Google slides for brainstorming and noting down sudden Ideas

Google docs for the actual book

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Reckon my mum threatened to beat me to the moon and back a few times. That or straight send me to it to be rid of me for a little while.

I meant his imagination is stronger than mine because I don't have much energy left by the time I get to take a break from watching him. He made a spaceship out of pillows, and then he told me he made it to the moon when he got out.

 

[IllyasArt]

Wow, I just started using Obsidian recently to edit my drafts and this is a really useful list. I had no idea about Smart Typography and Longform, in particular -- those are very useful. Thank you. (What, no Thesaurus? Is the Obsidian thesaurus bad?)

As for what I use to write:
Before Obsidian I was mostly editing in Word, because I like to use ProWritingAid for grammar. But I just discovered ProWritingAid also works in Obsidian.

And of course because I am approximately 45% robot my drafts are made in a special LLM editing program.

So far, every language model I've seen has pretty robotic outputs, which really aren't useful to me at all. Btw, there are a few Obsidian plugins for AI. I haven't tried them out, since, like I said, not my cup of tea. (Maybe a few years from now they'll be good, but even so, I still prefer my words over an AI, errors, spelling mistakes and all, haha.)

 

[TheMonotonePuppet]

There aren't really many tutorials for Obsidian, and most of them are for note taking, oof. Really, the best help I can give you is just giving you list of all of the plugins that I use.

(I don't use ALL of them, but I do use most of the ones for writing. If you don't use it already, the Longform plugin is what I use to write novels.)

Admonition.
Advanced Slides.
Advanced Tables.
Better Command Palette.
Better Word Count.
Calendar.
Completr.
Daily Stats.
Data View.
Dictionary.
Easy Typing.
Excalidraw.
Fantasy Content Generator.
Fantasy Stablocks.
File Color.
Icon Folder.
Icons.
Kanban.
Kindle.
LangaugeTool Intergration.
Longform.
Minimal Theme Settings.
Mathpad.
Novel Word Count.
Obsidian Enhancing Export.
Obsidian Tabs.
Privacy Glasses.
ProZen.
QuickAdd.
Readability Score.
Reading Time.
Recent Files.
Smart Typography.
Stopwatch Plugin.
Style Settings.
Templater.
Text to Speech.
Typewriter Scroll.
Typing Speed.
Unicode Search.
Zoom.

Holy shish kebab!!!

 

[KrakenRiderEmma]

So far, every language model I've seen has pretty robotic outputs, which really aren't useful to me at all. Btw, there are a few Obsidian plugins for AI. I haven't tried them out, since, like I said, not my cup of tea. (Maybe a few years from now they'll be good, but even so, I still prefer my words over an AI, errors, spelling mistakes and all, haha.)

Yeah, I tried out the Obsidian AI plugins and would NOT use them to write. They all use OpenAI models (ChatGPT) or Llama. Because of safety protocols, there are very few models that don't have a robotic feel, and those models work differently than prompting for output. The one I use has its own editor, and attempts to follow the style of my own writing, which Is why I write 65% and it writes 45% (which I also edit as it goes, to make it more like my writing). Still speeds up a ton, whenever I get stuck and can't think of a good word to go next, get tired of describing something, or am blocked. It's like having a smart but somewhat clueless younger robot-sibling sitting next to you that goes "what if you wrote this next?" And you can say "that's totally not what she would say, try again!" or "ok that one's all right, but I'm going to change a few words to improve the style." Or that process gives YOU an idea of what the right way to write it is.

It would be hard to incorporate that kind of thing via an Obsidian plugin because there's a lot of extra UI to go "under the hood" of the AI and change how weird vs predictable the generation is, what it's thinking about right now (like if you want it to remember some lore), or look at the "deck" it's picking from and change course halfway through a sentence, etc.

 

[Succubiome]

It's like having a smart but somewhat clueless younger robot-sibling sitting next to you that goes "what if you wrote this next?" And you can say "that's totally not what she would say, try again!" or "ok that one's all right, but I'm going to change a few words to improve the style." Or that process gives YOU an idea of what the right way to write it is.

This is a cute way to think about it.

----
@IllyasArt

Will adding plugins screw up writing I already have in Obsidian?

 

[dummycake]

Yeah, I tried out the Obsidian AI plugins and would NOT use them to write. They all use OpenAI models (ChatGPT) or Llama. Because of safety protocols, there are very few models that don't have a robotic feel, and those models work differently than prompting for output. The one I use has its own editor, and attempts to follow the style of my own writing, which Is why I write 65% and it writes 45% (which I also edit as it goes, to make it more like my writing). Still speeds up a ton, whenever I get stuck and can't think of a good word to go next, get tired of describing something, or am blocked. It's like having a smart but somewhat clueless younger robot-sibling sitting next to you that goes "what if you wrote this next?" And you can say "that's totally not what she would say, try again!" or "ok that one's all right, but I'm going to change a few words to improve the style." Or that process gives YOU an idea of what the right way to write it is.

It would be hard to incorporate that kind of thing via an Obsidian plugin because there's a lot of extra UI to go "under the hood" of the AI and change how weird vs predictable the generation is, what it's thinking about right now (like if you want it to remember some lore), or look at the "deck" it's picking from and change course halfway through a sentence, etc.

and you're not sharing with us?

 

[Kamba]

I pretty much only use google docs. Mainly for two reasons: the autocorrect is decent and I can write down ideas on my phone while out on walks.
I have used Zim before (desktop wiki similar to Obsidian, but less polished)

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Google docs but I format on Atticus.

 

[IllyasArt]

This is a cute way to think about it.

----
@IllyasArt

Will adding plugins screw up writing I already have in Obsidian?

It shouldn't, but I would recommend backing up your vault just in case. (IE, copy and pasting it into a different folder.)

 

[Succubiome]

It shouldn't, but I would recommend backing up your vault just in case. (IE, copy and pasting it into a different folder.)

Thanks!

 

[KrakenRiderEmma]

and you're not sharing with us?

What did you want to know, which AI tool? Links are in my profile (forum and stories) and on each story but it’s NovelAI.net from Anlatan. Latest model is Kayra, it’s pretty good if you learn how to pilot it well. (Some people try to run it without writing anything themselves, or just give it a ChatGPT prompt “write me a story about” with no further work writing in their part, and it doesn’t work as well). Probably best for people who can write and want to go faster.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Downloaded Obsidian. Why does it take 10x the memory of any other note app?! At that point just use notepad++

 

[IllyasArt]

Downloaded Obsidian. Why does it take 10x the memory of any other note app?! At that point just use notepad++

Simply because it is more than a note taking app. For me, it doesn't take up more performance than Scrivener does. Some overhead is worth it for how optimized you can get with obsidian. (There are also app versions, which you can sync your projects to. There are some free syncing plugins, but the one offered by Obsidian is paid.)

 

[fantasyretreat]

Hello guys. New author here.
I use Google Docs, both on my phone and laptop. I write mostly on my laptop though.