iGoogle for Ideas & Reference

One tool that I use everyday has proven invaluable to my writing. It also has value in other areas, but for the purpose of this post, I will address iGoogle for writers. If you are not aware of iGoogle, it would behoove you to change that.

iGoogle allows you to personalize your information searches. You can gather, track and monitor all areas of interest, and all in one place, on one page. You add widgets or modules to a certain tab, which you can also create. I have a writing tab where I place all modules concerning writing. This saves a great deal of time if you surf the net searching for certain information needed to complete your writing project. If there are certain sites you visit frequently, check to see if they have a widget you can place on your iGoogle page.

You also have the power to rearrange, by clicking and dragging, all the widgets under any given tab, and also drop it to another tab, and by clicking a plus or minus, you may choose whether you want their content opened on the page, or closed as a title bar.

My only complaint is that they made a recent change in the location of the tabs--to vertically on the left, which doesn't work for me, so i use the Canada version of iGoogle, which works like the old one. I have heard from different sources that iGoogle is working on making all those formatting choices available so the user can have the layout however desired.

I currently have 9 different tabs in my iGoogle page, and I use them all everyday.

One word of warning: once you see how iGoogle will streamline your writing day, you run the risk of developing an addiction to it.

iGoogle for Ideas & Reference

Mapping your Settings

I have always been a stickler about authentic detail in my writing. This trait has forced me to find innovative ways to make that happen. Google Maps is one of those tools I use.

Novelists have to deal with many details while composing their books. One of the most challenging, if you are concerned about verisimilitude--an air of authenticity--is setting. Many times i have set my story in a place I've never been. Then, as the story evolves, i find that the logistics of moving characters around becomes problematic, because I'm not sure where one location is, in relation to another. Nor if that type of location, business, landscape even exists. With today's constantly improving technology, you can now provide the credible details in your settings by using Google Maps. A personalized Google Map solves the writer's problem.

Google Maps is often used by travelers to get driving directions, but it can also be used in the virtual reality of the novel you are writing. Google has a "my maps" feature, where you can save a certain map, and then add your own icons and flags. I use this to keep track of the places my characters go, live, work and interact in any way. If you type in a street address, it will place a marker on that spot. You can then save that marker to your own map, and then you can re-label it, and change the icon if you want.

For instance, i use the house icon to indicate where my characters live, the food icon for restaurants they go to, and so on. The satellite feature allows you to see real terrain. Recently this came in handy when I had a character parked by tennis courts and needed to know where the hedges and bushes were in relation to the story. The zooming feature, whether in satellite mode or map mode, is also handy in seeing detail and putting your setting together in your mind. With the added features of zooming and using the satellite feature, you have at your fingertips a window into the world in which you have placed your characters. It also seems to help create flow, in that writer's block has a hard time getting a foothold when you have all this information that provides inspiration where it might not have appeared otherwise. And you also decrease the likelihood of losing credibility when you have your characters do things the reader knows is impossible.

Mapping your Settings