Google Documents for Collaborative Writing

At her prompting my friend and I started checking into the usability of Google Documents for the purpose of collaborating on the book we are writing together. Being a fan of the old notebook and pen system, I was more than a little uneasy about using an online storage system. Blame it on a panicky paranoia of 'are search spiders going to index our story?'

I've got over the paranoia (mostly) after I got to looking at the documents feature a bit more, and checking into the security information on Google's Documents. While it is true that you get what you pay for, and Google Documents is free, it at least seems to be reasonably safe for tossing stuff back and forth for rough draft purposes.

And, I have to admit, the ability to see my co-writer's comments in real-time is pretty cool stuff. We were just working in it and I was able to see her comment even as I was writing something. Although, it is a bit scary to have someone else see the messy way I end up with a coherent sentence. LOL!