google docs how i hate you
As a writer who has failed to write anything publish-worthy in the last few years, I always thought I was the problem. My ideas weren't concrete enough, my inspiration not strong enough, my skill not honed enough. There must have been something wrong with me, I thought, because every time I opened Google Docs with an idea for a story, it would disappear. But I would like to venture that there was never anything wrong with me. Google Docs is unintuitive, uncreative, and wasn't made for writing stories. So why did I keep trying to convince myself it was my only option?
After Google rolled out their AI policies for Google Docs a few months ago, essentially laying claim to everything I have ever written or will write into the website to program their AI, I decided it was finally time to let go of Docs. It didn't take much searching to find rave reviews of Ellipsus, a writing program currently in Beta which was created by writers for writers. It provides a sleek, minimalist workspace with folder-within-folder functionality. It also has a drafts function, which allows you to keep track of multiple drafts of a document within the same page. All of that sounded great to me, so I gave it a try! After about a month of using Ellipsus to write both assignments for school and creative writing, I am happy to report that I don't think I'll ever be using Google Docs again.
Inside my Creative Writing folder. Oooooo, colors!
The first thing that struck me about Ellipsus was the gorgeous design. Google Docs by comparison looks like it was designed to repel me. There are plenty of pretty color themes to choose from, and the theme menu is always within view so you can change the theme within seconds. I change the theme multiple times every day, whether I want something a little more covert like dark mode or I need a good reason to stay on the page (when writing a paper for example) and make everything rainbow.
As for the actual writing experience, I love the ability to collapse all the menus and have the text be the center of attention. The first time I used Ellipsus, I wrote 3k words of a play script I had been procrastinating on because the layout made it easy to zone-in. The keyboard shortcuts on Ellipsus are also very intuitive and easy to get used to, so I can format my text and make changes without ever having to open the toolbar.
My pretty writing workspace ft. a poem called "Reeling".
When writing for school, I find that Ellipsus allows me to feel more in-touch with what I'm writing. Now, I'm not trying to get every assignment done as quickly as possible because the 11pt Arial typeface is ugly and the screen is hurting my eyes.
One of the only reasons Ellipsus (in its current state) might not be the perfect platform for everyone would be the pageless format. There isn't currently an option to turn it from pageless into paged, unless you convert it to a PDF when you're done. For school, I have to submit papers in a Word format, so I usually paste into a Google or Word Doc and save it that way when I'm done writing. Thankfully, that's the only issue I've run into with it so far. Since the platform is in Beta, that's probably something that will change soon. I'm also pretty sure a paid version is coming to the platform at some point, but all of the necessary features will stay unpaid. With how happy I am using it so far, though, I wouldn't mind paying (a reasonable amount) to use its features. There is also an app in the works, but the webpage on mobile works just fine and I haven't had any issues.
Overall, I'm very pleased with Ellipsus and its anti-AI stance. While it feels like every company is trying to take advantage of my creative work for AI, Ellipsus is a welcome break from the status quo. I can't believe I tried sticking it out with Google Docs for so many years when there were smaller companies with better options right here. I am finally enjoying cuddling with my laptop in a blanket and just writing again.