Google Drive For Writing Partners

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

Many moons ago, I was writing a book with a co-author, who lived out of state, so other than making phone calls to discuss our project, we were at the time limited to email for correspondence.

At the time, I suggested we share documents on what was called Google Docs, but honestly it was like trying to upload a feature film on Windows 1998 with dial-up. So, we eventually resorted to sending a Word document back and forth, which worked fine since we were both very disciplined in our writing.

Fast forward, eight years and I am once again writing with someone, I'm unable to meet up with very often but not because of distance, but because of Los Angeles traffic (insert punchline here), so we wanted to have a way to share our writing, notes and comments on a living document.

I decided to give Google Docs, which is now simply "Docs" on Google Drive another shot and all I can say is it was an amazing experience.

The speed isn't lagging. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the internet connection, we now have, but the available tools are really helpful.

There's a way to comment in the margin and color code the sections and edits, you want to have stand out as new material. There is also a history of changes, so you can resurrect a deletion if necessary.

But, the best part is you can watch the other person type LIVE. Oh, and of course it's free.

I highly recommend it.

Copyright 2018 Linda Andersson/The Grid Zom, LLC