Tag Archives: scrivener

A New Year's Scribbler: January 1, 2014

This entry is part 31 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

The daily scribble posts are back. On New Year's Day, I didn't actually expect to be productive. I expected laid back holiday, wherein we ate a scrumptious meal, spent time with family, and kept our four-year-old tradition of a treasure hunt, albeit a week late due to my sister and I having been sick heading into Christmas.

We did that, but I was also productive.

Reading

Read through some Yuletide reveals and one of the two new stories at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I also 'accidentally' stayed up to 2 o'clock in the morning reading Lynn Austin's Return to Me.

Note: I am extremely picky about historical and non-Old Testamental Biblical fiction. Most of it bores me unless it's written extraordinarily well. I tend to like Old Testament stories and I like classics that were written in historical periods, but not ones written about said historical periods. That said, I liked Lynn Austin's Gods and Kings series about Hezekiah. This book is set during a period of Biblical history that fascinates me (and is Old Testament): the interval between Daniel and Esther wherein there was Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah, and Haggai. So I figured I'd like this book.

It had issues. Overall, I liked it. Can't say I loved it because the prologue was fabulous and then the first ten chapters were so tedious that I skipped five of them and probably never will read them. The middle was driven by a bad promise the main character kept despite knowing better on so many counts it wasn't even funny. The ending was fabulous. So... mixed feelings. Probably won't reread.

I've been reading The Drought and Quartz as well and am hoping to catch up within the next month.

Publishing

Hammered away at "Dowse and Bleed" by tweaking four or five lines that were bothering me (apparently I'm one of those artists who won't stop editing until you pry her work right out of her hands), laying out the interior less hyphenation, and figuring out whether to add chronology to the cover. Also categorized it as a science fiction procedural per BISAC. Thank you, lithiumlaughter and in_the_blue, for helping me figure that one out. I haven't decided whether I want to add an excerpt for a forthcoming story in there, but am leaning strongly toward not.

To publish this baby in January, I particularly need to finalize the cover and finish pounding away at the summary, which I was doing yesterday. I thought it was perfect than realized it really didn't have a strong enough emphasis on what a special-type human was or that this was superhuman fiction. :headdesk: Back to the drawing board.

I'm tempted to work on Kingdoms and Thorn for the February story, but then it might be waaay better to do one of the other storyworlds for lots of reasons, so leaving certainty on the back burner.

Writing

Wrote 12 sentences instead of seven on book I should not be writing but is pestering me anyway.

Did some percolating research for fanfics in progress. I've got a particular scene I want to write for Finding the Ground and am still mulling over exactly where I want to check into Laurie. I think I know, but I keep waffling.

Also reread a bunch of Divergent series stuff. Is it awful to say I want a serious romance fic on the level of short story like what I write for Rogue/Gambit? Tris and Four have this serious fade to black moment and I'm pretty sure it was the standard fade to black and I wanted more. Additionally, I've got other serious Divergent plot-bunnies. I'd like to make them wait until I update some of my older fics so many people are waiting on, but no promises. Never those.

Collaboration

Discovered the joys of Scrivener for collaboration. I can add status notes about who worked on which part last, setting keywords, folders for our alternate chapter/scene orders and compiled files, etc., etc., etc. And we're sort of writing multiple timelines, so the brain went crazy with ideas yesterday. For collaboration, Scrivener is awesome.

Which brings me to...

New Arrivals

Scrivener: I officially love you, thecatisacritic. Thank you!

Duotrope: I thought about submitting "Dowse and Bleed" before I changed my mind, but now have a trial of Duotrope. I should do Heinlein's challenge in light of it, but I don't need the pressure, so probably won't.

Word Count

  • Fiction: 49 words
  • Poetry: 0 words
  • Blog: 81 words
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Finding My Year Through the Scribbling

So 2013, goodnight, goodbye
You were lovely and bright
You were terrible, my!

I loved you, I hated you
I scribbled the mess of you
Oh, 2013! Goodnight, goodbye!

End of the year post and all that demands a lot more out of me than I'm willing to give. The analytical brain was left in bed this morning and is still sleeping peacefully against my pillow. The rest of me, creative but lazily, has been puttering about today, wishing to join the analytical brain in pleasant dreams and instead working my tail off and getting little in the way of writing done. Which is a nice way of saying, expect a ramble. I'm rambly when I'm sleepy.

A Long Look Back

This was a busy year, full of good things and bad. On a personal level, I got a job, went permanent, had a falling out with someone once precious to me, lost my great-uncle, and have had ups and downs in my relationship with my sister. Nevertheless, I also had the sweetest Christmas season I can remember, starting with a Thanksgiving I actually enjoyed before all the cleanup was done.

This was the year I did the 365 Challenge and wrote original fiction as prolifically as when I dove back into fandom and whipped out 300K words of posted fanfic alone. I met a new storyworld and had so many delightful prompts and questions, I never could keep up with them all, but it produced "Dowse and Bleed" and I expect several forthcoming novelettes, novels, and collections. Additionally, I met a storyworld everybody who's read it has loved and know that it will do well if I can get it fleshed out in book format.

This was the year I did Nano—again—and failed. Again. Ah, well. :deep sigh:

This was the year I started a collaborative novel that stands more than a chance of succeeding and reaching those wonderful words, THE END. Also, I now own Scrivener. Quadruple awesome.

This was the year I moved out from sharing a room with my sister to having my own (godsend), my family blessed me with my own Samsung tablet (horrible distraction!), and the year I pulled together some actual songs to give as gifts using Finale (super fun).

This was the year I finally worked up the nerve to participate in Yuletide. If I hadn't veteraned in I Need My Fics, it never would have happened. It was wonderful, really wonderful. I loved my fics.

On the bookish front, I got my own copy of Jane Eyre now (yay!), The Left Hand of Darkness (I've been wanting to read this for forever), and Allegiant (see previous post for more on that). At some point, I might mull out how I feel about Le Guin's book, but in case I don't, let me just say it was amazing how the narrative had so many angles. The story disguises itself as Genly's story and in a very small, small way it is, but it's really Estraven's story, and the depth it takes us into the culture is amazing. I'm so glad I finally got to read this classic. Thanks, Yuletide bookswap!

Looking Forward

And next year? Next year, I'd like to write and publish, finish the Lena/Wesley book, finish fleshing out the heavier Kingdoms and Thorn and Vardin works that keep lying around, finish lithiumlaughter's fanfics "Everything is Blood" and "Body Heat," finish this collaboration with thecatisacritic, and maybe write some Divergent fanfic. I have that I must wait so long for the movie. :le sigh:

So thanks, last year, for being as big and complex and wonderful and challenging as you were and here's hoping the next year is big and wonderful for all of you. Happy New Year!

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Reading and Writing, October 13

This entry is part 12 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Started off the day on a nice foot: I finished crossposting the last 52 chapters of Whispers from ff.net to AO3. Because someone asked me to. Always the best kind of fanfic work.

As part of prep for NaNo, I want to get Kingdoms and Thorn into Scrivener. I forgot I had created my own continuity template, but right now, I am supremely pleased. All that work, already done. :grins:

I'm mixing up scribbling, reading, recording an audio project, and other busywork all together. Getting some decent stuff. Okay, I've got other stuff to do, so done for the night.

On the reading front, I got an early Yuletide gift—a Rachelle ficlet from in_the_blue. I officially consider this my second piece of fanfic ever and it is awesome.

Count

  • Total Fiction: 1561 words - Month to Date: 15,442 words
  • Total Blog: 100 words - Month to Date: 5,690 words

365 Challenge

  • 210/365 - Kingdoms and Thorn Ficlet: That'll Work – 177 words
  • 211/365 - Kingdoms and Thorn Ficlet: We Can't Have That – 208 words
  • 212/365 – Kingdoms and Thorn Ficlet: Gratitude in an Off Note – 197 words
  • 213/365 – Kingdoms and Thorn Ficlet: Reality Check – 303 words
  • 214/365 – Kingdoms and Thorn Ficlet: Anywhere But Here – 349 words
  • 215/365 – Kingdoms and Thorn Ficlet: Wedding Gift – 327 words
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Reading and Writing, October 12

This entry is part 11 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

So I signed up for Nanowrimo, and ONLY because there's a 50% off Scrivener attached to winning. Am I pathetic or just greedy for Scrivener?

Ahem. Anyway...

So got Scrivener all set up on my machine, replied to a couple comments, noted I really ought to peek at the hundreds of spam notifications in my email, but decided not to. Thought I'd write more off the computer, but percolated instead. While I did get something written, it was short enough to lump it in with when I actually finished the piece.

Calling it a night.

Count

  • Total Fiction: 0 words - Month to Date: 13,881 words
  • Total Blog: 95 words - Month to Date: 5,590 words

 

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing Software

So I have discovered that I love Scrivener, that I can figure out how to make it work for me, and that it makes life so much easier to write a short story. Now, let's see if I can finish adapting the method for novelling.

So. Details.

I finished an almost 7000 word Christmas short story in the nick of time for Christmas reading, then finished editing it in 20 minutes. The formatting was a pain, due to one serious frustration: it is literally impossible to merge text items or compile them without separators. I'm a controlling type when it comes to my formatting. I was using a different glyph for every scene separator and had several scenes split up into several text files. Needless to say, manually batting cleanup after Scrivener was. not. fun.

I tried reorganizing The Rothnen Cycle and Vardin project into the same format I had done the Christmas short story (and related stories) and immediately saw an improvement in my workflow. I label the draft "Current" and keep separate folders for Imported Files, Sketches, Working Files, and Compiled Stories. Within "Working Files," I keep a file folder for each story and treat those as my draft documents. It gets messy. Under "Sketches," I put the original story sketch that I duplicate and split to get working files. This allows me to keep a record of how my muse works and stories I'm not ready to flesh out yet. When I'm done with a story, I duplicate the working file folder, merge it all into a single text, and drop it under compiled. If I ever want to go back and plunk in more edits (like newly discovered typos), I update the working files and remerge. The current is where I plunk any compiled doc I want to compile to print or pdf. Works beautifully.

How goes your writing process?

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