Go With The Flow

Writing isn't easy. It takes discipline to find the time to write, assuming you're not a full-time writer, and then to actually sit your backside in a chair and do it. You can always find excuses to avoid writing and usually they're things most people would find reasonable—you need to clean the house, go grocery shopping, make dinner. And at the end of the year, it takes a near herculean effort not to succumb to the Big Excuses—holiday planning/decorating/meal cooking/gift shopping. I mean, the holidays are already stressful enough and you don't want to let your friends and family down, right?

Wrong. You've forgotten one very important person: You. When you, as a writer, don't prioritize your writing and always (or mostly) let other distractions take precedence, you're letting yourself down. I don't mean your writing absolutely has to come always first, but it should be important enough to come first a fair amount of the time. It's called balance, something we could all do with more of in our lives.

That's one of the reasons why I think NaNoWriMo is great for a lot of people. I'll freely admit it isn't for everyone. But for some people, NaNo has turned out to be the one month of the year they're able to truly prioritize their writing as task numero uno. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because they can point to the website and say, "See? I'm participating in a national event. I just can't do x-y-z until I've reached my word count for the day." Or, maybe it's the feeling of we're-all-in-this-together comradery at the write-ins that spurs people on to continue writing.

It's as if once you start writing, the words suddenly just keep flowing. My advice: Go with the Flow. Make it a habit and keep going. (Surprise! For those who only write during NaNoWriMo, if you keep writing after November the words still flow.)

One note. Don't forget to back up your work! My rule is: Save Early and Often. Turn on automatic saving, manually save frequently, and create an archive back up after each writing session. Since I use Scrivener, I back up my Scrivener project to a zip file.

Another back up suggestion—save your back up file to multiple physical locations, in case of a disk crash. My two favorite "off computer" back up locations are an USB flash drive and Dropbox. If you've never heard of Dropbox, it's a cloud service and it's free for up to 2GB of storage (you can pay for more storage, but honestly I've been using it for months and haven't begun to make a dent in my storage space). You can access it from multiple devices (PCs, Macs, iphones, ipads, other smart phones, etc.) and you can share files with other people, if you choose, using different levels of permission. It's an amazing service.

So, find time to write and write as much as you can (turn off your internal editor!). Save your work frequently and copy your back up files to multiple storage devices. And above all, have fun!

I'm a bit behind on my NaNo goals, but I'm plugging away and writing every day. How's your NaNo journey going?

Hook Up with Tech Stars Like NiteCruzr

Current Project: Revising Blindsight
Status: Moving Forward

My most recent helpful tech discovery is a virtual hunk named NiteCruzr. I began stalking him after I spotted him several times on the Blogger Help Forum, where I’d gone in desperation when Blogger’s stock Help answers didn’t help. (Find the forum by clicking on ‘contact us’ in the new Blogger interface.) 

Anyhow, this technical giant of a man oozed answers (over 50,000 of them so far.) He is a Star contributor, someone who knows a heck of a lot about Blogger and helps the technically-challenged, apparently out of the goodness of his heart. He does this for fun, at (you guessed it) night.

When I got over my shyness and clicked on his name link, I learned he blogs. He blogs a lot.

• about Blogger at www.blogging.nitecruzr.net
• about Microsoft Windows networking, security, and support at www.networking.nitecruzr.net
• about blogging at http://groups.google.com/group/nitecruzr-dot-net-blogging/topics

He’s worth his weight in virtual gold to the technically-challenged. (On a side note, he blogs about cooking at www.recipes.nitecruzr.net A Renaissance man!) The good news is, you can (virtually) stalk him, too. And others like him. 

You’ll find them on forums associated with blog or web hosting services ( WordPress, GoDaddy ), software programs (DreamWeaver, Microsoft Office Forums), and on forums devoted to personal computer users (MacTalk. Bleeping Computer .) In a nutshell: you name the technology; it’s got a forum (probably more than one.) And those forums have Stars who can (and usually will) answer your questions.

So venture out, ask your most vexing questions, and hook up with tech stars. You’ll be glad you did.

A Technology Freak of Nature

I have a confession to make and I think I'll just go ahead and say it and get it out of the way. I'm the last person you should ask for technical advice. Why? Because I'm a tech freak—the kind of person technology loves. And by technology, I'm talking about the hardware/software, not the people who make it.

That's right. I'm one of those odd people for whom things just work. And when there is a blip, most things right themselves fairly quickly. Only rarely do I run into hardware or software with a fatal bug/flaw that I can't coax into working well for me (I'm glaring at you, MS Word). Hell, I've even coaxed most PCs I've had the misfortune to own to do what I want them to do and I know next to nothing about the various flavors of the Windoze operating systems. (Trust me when I say this isn't bragging on my part—I couldn't tell you how to do anything on a PC that I've already done.)

I spent most of my career at Sun like this. I'd test software and have no problem with it; I'd watch my neighbor across the hall go through the exact same installation steps and the software wouldn't work at all. Who knows why?

It's the reason for the blank look that generally crosses my face when someone asks me for technical help or hardware/software recommendations. I'm never quite sure what to say. Most of the time I fall back on the generic, "You should buy what you're comfortable using. Don't let someone talk you into [hardware / software] just because they like it."

I realize that for a lot of people, technology is a struggle. It doesn't live up to the marketing hype, sometimes struggles to do what the tech specs claim, and in a lot of cases, doesn't really make your life easier. Unless you're a freak like me. I can't explain it; it's just the way I am.

The bottom line? If you're in the market for technology, be it hardware or software, don't be an impulse buyer. There are usually multiple solutions for anything you want to accomplish. Do your homework. Google is your friend. Read online reviews—from more than one site. Ask your friends for their opinions (but take their enthusiasm/hate with a grain of salt). Find a store that will let you get your hands on the hardware/play with the software before you buy.

Just don't ask me; I'm a technology freak of nature.

Scrivener, FTW!

First, a small disclaimer. I am not affiliated with Literature and Latte, the creator of Scrivener, in any way, nor have I received any compensation from them (not even software, more's the pity). The following is my personal opinion, based on nearly 4 years of using Scrivener.

I know I've talked about Scrivener on this blog in the past. I'm writing about it today as my first Tech Tip because I think a writer's choice of software is just that important. For me, it's a make it/break it kind of choice.

Let me start by saying that, in general, I hate word processing software. The de facto standard, MS Word, is at the top of my hate list. It's bloated and cumbersome, and I find it entirely too unwieldy to use. Every time I've tried to create in Word, I've given up in frustration and headed for a (generally free) plain text editor. Word Perfect wasn't much better and neither was OpenOffice, but at least the latter was free. Apple's Pages software isn't bad, but it's really geared toward smaller tasks than writing a book.

So what was I looking for in writing software, if none of those programs were right for me? The bottom line was I wanted software that would get out of my way when I needed it to (while writing), but that would be a help at other times (outlining, organizing, etc.). And, at the end of the day, it had to be able to export the entire book to a Word formatted document.

There are several programs out there that can accomplish those goals in various ways. I researched most of them a few years ago and out of that research I finally settled on Scrivener. At the time Scrivener was only available for the Mac, but as of 2.1 it's now available for the PC, as well. And if you're curious about other software, so you can judge for yourself, Literature and Latte maintains links to Scrivener's competitors on their site (go to their Links page and click on "Writing Software"). If Scrivener isn't your cup of latte, one of the programs listed on that page just might be. You can also download a free trial version of Scrivener and see what you think first hand.

So. Why Scrivener?

Here's a (partial) list of features I find useful, in no particular order.

1. Manuscript Template
If you're writing fiction you can create your project using a manuscript template. You edit your documents using whatever font you wish at whatever size and style. When you're ready to "export" (print or create a Word doc, among others), you select standard manuscript and Scrivener formats your novel correctly (courier, double spaced, correct NAME/Title/Page# at top of each page) and even adds the cover page. A prime example of getting out of my way while I write, but taking care of me at the end so I don't have to deal with the nitty-gritty details.

2. Tools for Structuring/Organizing
Prefer to plot with index cards? No problem. Scrivener has a corkboard mode which allows you to see your work (scenes or chapters) as cards that you can easily edit and re-organize by dragging around. Rather work with an outline? Scrivener has you covered with outline mode. There's also the Binder view, which shows you chapters and scenes. You can easily move (drag) scenes around, create new chapters, etc.

3. Character and Location Sketches
Scrivener comes with templates for Characters and Locations. You can choose to use them or create your own. And if you like collecting pictures of people/places to inspire you when you create your characters/locations, you can add them to your sketch document with a simple drag/drop. None of this gets compiled in your final manuscript, by the way -- it's just there at your fingertips if you need it while writing.

4. A Place for Research
I used to create a separate binder for all the research I would do for a book. Then it became a folder (or, more like several folders) on the computer. Now, all my research goes into the Scrivener Research folder. Just about anything you can think of -- web pages, pdfs, images, movie/sound files -- can be added.

5. Full Screen Mode
At its core, Scrivener is a tool for writers. When you're ready to write--to get the words down on paper--put Scrivener in full screen mode and go to it. Scrivener darkens your screen to remove distractions. All you see are your words. A neat feature of full screen mode is "typewriter text" -- the line you're typing stays at the center of the screen, just like you would see if you were writing on a typewriter. It's amazing how that little feature helps keep you focused.

6. Backups are Easy
Automatic backups, sure. The feature I like best though, is the easy ability to completely archive my Scrivener project (including all the research information) in a single zip file that I can copy to a flash drive, DropBox, or from the desktop computer to the laptop. I've gotten into the habit of creating a zip file at the end of every writing session and I now have multiple snapshot backups of my current book.

7. Easy Exporting (Word, ePub, Kindle)
If you need an electronic version of your manuscript, rather than a printed or pdf version, Scrivener has you covered. You can choose to export to MS Word, RTF, HTML, or, if you're self-publishing, you can choose ePub or Kindle formats.

8. Tutorials and Help
Scrivener comes with a tutorial and I still use it on occasion. The Literature and Latte site has a series of video tutorials that are very useful -- they allow you to see the software in action. There are support forums, a wiki and an FAQ. So far, if I've wondered how to do something, I've generally found the answer in the wiki.

There you have it. I hope you found this useful, or at least intriguing. Scrivener is my writing program of choice. There's so much more to it than I could possibly cover here. If it weren't for Scrivener, I'd either still be writing in a text editor and then struggling when it came time to transfer my writing to Word. Or, more likely, I'd be gritting my teeth and writing directly in Word--and hating every minute of it.

Everyone has a different writing process and not everyone will find the same software to their liking. Do you use Word--and like it? Or do you have another choice that you'd like to share?