The poetic use of Ulysses
I have a strange relationship with my poetry. I write free verse poetry that relates to the boundary between my own internal reality and the open reality that we all see. When I write poetry, I need to write it; it is a primeval urge to get it down. I am not a poetry-planner.
The need will strike at any time, and therefore any location. This was how I discovered Ulysses.
It was its cross (Apple) platform, seamless integration, and feature parity, that won me over. So I found the tool that allowed me to create on my MacBook, my iPad Pro 12.9″, or my iPhone 8 Plus. It just damn-well-works.
The first book
After a while, I realised that I had a collection of work that was worthy of publication. (I’m totally going to gloss over the background and reasons for publication). So I knew that I wanted both a physical book, and also an eBook. The former was created with the help of QuarkXPress 2018, but I wanted to create the latter directly from Ulysses. In both instances, I wanted a single authoritative source.
That was when I discovered that I really should start putting some effort into organising how I use, and layout Ulysses.
I have since published a second book, and am writing another, and feel comfortable with what I have come up with.
It was an email from Jeff Nesheim , prompted by my random tweets, who asked how I used Ulysses. So, we can all blame Jeff!
eck out what wonderful delights Jeff has to offer here; http://www.jeffnesheim.com/
Capture
Over the decades, I have developed a hobby of mucking around with software, tweaking, changing, fiddling, just because I can. I see it as a skill. It is, though, a skill that gets in the way of creating.
The whole premise of Ulysses is that it should get the heck out of the way, and allow you to capture words; to create and write.
For the purpose of capture, I have a single Group Folder, called “Random” This is where I create ALL of my poetry. At the capture stage I make no effort to categorise or curate it; just record it.
I do have 3 rules when I capture any poetry;
Give it a title. This is the initial instinctive title that I feel is correct at the time. I may change this later, but I feel this pure initial title is important.
Date stamp. Whilst Ulysses will record the creation date, I prefer to add it into the work.
Notes. I always add something that describes what I was thinking or seeing, or whatever was going through my mind, at the time of creation.
This is an extract from my work “Hot Bricks”, taken from Mindful Cornucopia.
I’ve given it a title with the single # and then used the quote > for the notes and then again for the date. Followed by the (first 2 verse) of the poetic work.
The use of the quote markdown is something that I changed, after moving to KBasic by Jennifer Mack ; more on that later.
Folder layout
Whilst I have a more complex layout for my Novels, for poetry works it is more straight forward.
A root group, which is the title of the book / work. ‘Marketing’ contains anything useful, such as Amazon links and synopses of the book. ‘Content’ contains the meat, split into sections (if appropriate).
I always have Front Matter and Back Matter groups, which sandwich the main content. The Back Matter holds the Author Profile. The Front Matter Group contains the following items;
Title page + Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Preface
Export
There is a real practical reason for the layout above; when I need to export it to ePub / Kindle format, then I can just click on the Content group and export everything from there (downwards).
I have settled on the use of the KBasic by Jennifer Mack style. It isn’t overly complicated and looks lovely. Click on the link and take a look at it. Jennifer gives a great explanation of how to use it.
Editing, versions, and all that junk
OK, I feel like I have to be honest here; I despise editing. As I say in the preface of my book, when it comes to my pure poetry I feel that editing removes something from it. I will correct spelling, but nothing much else. However, in this book it also contained some articles, and so I was forced to tackle this nasty subject.
My approach was to export it all, using the PDF Rough Cut format, and then get someone else to proof-read it. They will then markup the unforgivable issues, and hand it back to me. (Imagine white paper with nasty red scribbles). I then just corrected the mistakes, in Ulysses.
“Hang on…” I hear you say, “what about revision control?”
That is a really good point, and as an ex-software developer I do understand. I choose to totally ignore it! Let me explain.
To my way of thinking, there are two reasons for holding a copy, or record, of the revisions.
You are not sure of about the changes, so may want to undo the changes later.
You want an historical record of the, before and after, version of your work.
Both of those are totally valid reasons for having and holding revisions. So, lets talk about how I handle them.
(1) – I use Apple’s Time Machine to handle this. It totally integrates with the app, and you can use the Save Version menu item to force a specific save if you wish. With this enabled, I can scroll back to any version of anything that I have written in any sheet. It truly is wonderful.
(2) As an artist, I totally get this. I understand that you need to hold a copy of the before and after versions. You need to do this not from a backup/restore point of view, but from an artistic-point-of-view. So, if I feel the work requires this, then I use the Duplicate option. It really is as simple as creating a Duplicate of your work, and if you have created a folder/group of your work, then you can right-click and make a duplicate of it. My recommendation of this, would be to always Duplicate into an Historic version of it, and always make the most recent the Current version.
In practical terms, right-click on the Content folder and choose Duplicate. Name it accordingly, and move it into a Revisions folder (outside of the Contents folder).
Use of keywords / tags
This is a wonderfully creative area of Ulysses, and with a little forethought you can do some clever things. Here is how I use the feature.
To help my keep track of what I have checked, I have a keyword called checked.
If I know that something is broken, then I have a keyword called fix, which I also set to the colour red.
For my novel, I have taken the fix keyword usage one step further by creating a Filtered Group, that displays any sheet having the fix keyword. This gives me a nice and easy Fix me! list.
Getting out of the way
Ulysses does a great job at getting out of the way. It just allows me to write stuff. It doesn’t force me use a particular method or process, it just lets me get on with it. Sure, I still need to get out of my own way, but that is down to me.
Publishing
I feel that I need to say something about publishing.
Ulysses is epically good at publishing to eBook / ePub formats. It just damn-well-works. It is lovely.
Ulysses is less than ideal when it comes to publishing to dead-tree editions. I think that is just a focus thing; their focus is elsewhere. It is not that it can’t layout the book correctly, it is just the subtleties of page numbering and page sizes, that trips it up. (I am reaching out to the wonderful support team at Ulysses, to see if they can assist with this; I will update this post with any progress.)
I’m actually OK with that.
For me, Ulysses is about capture and creation. The fabrication of a dead-tree edition of your work, whilst massively important, requires all sorts of skills and stuff. From cover-art, on-wards.
It would, though, be great if a future Ulysses edition did give a little control over page numbering, then I wouldn’t have to call in the heavy-weights like QuarkXPress to handle all that.
In Summary
Ulysses has transformed how I write. It has captured that sweet-spot of getting the heck out of the way, and allowing me just to type and create. I will forever be thankful for that. Sure, it could always have more fancy features, but its unique-ness is that it recognises that the key to writing a book is writing.
Mindful Cornucopia
My book is available here, Mindful Cornucopia
Everyone should have more poetry in their lives. It should make you think, ponder, and sometimes resolve into an emotion.
Mindful Cornucopia is an expression of the boundary between my own internal reality and the external reality. Written in dense free verse, and coupled with some random thoughts, this is a genuinely original work.
Consisting of 6 articles and 20 poetic pieces, I hope it will create an emotional response in you.
Take the smallest of chances, and help me plant some more poetic trees.