I thought I should stop in and say a few words during the momentary lapse in seasonal activity.  In the five days since I unpacked the Macbook Pro, I have only had a little time to spend getting it set up and trying out the new features of OS X Snow Leopard — but I have found a true gem in Scrivener, a program for writers that makes writing natural and more intuitive than using a plain word processor.  I’ll be testing it out over Christmas vacation, and be sure that I will have an in depth review, with screenshots, ready for you by the first of the new year.

Had a lovely visit with my dear BFF, the poet and writer Sherry Rentschler yesterday.  We toured Southern Pines and exchanged gifts — and one of the gifts she gave to me was Anne Rice’s Called Out of Darkness, which I’m reading alongside my life’s work of finishing Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

More later (and not as many days away as last time.)

This latest post started out as a journal entry that I didn’t write while I was testing the programs listed below because I was too busy writing about other things like the tendency of fairytale writers to make fathers marked men (Have you noticed that in the well-known fairytales with female protagonists, all of their dads are dead or dying?) and Patrice O’Neal’s “Black Phillip Show”.  I guess it’s like Hemingway being able to write about life in the Midwest because in Europe, he was far enough away from it to see it with any clarity.  Anyway, enjoy the run down of what I think are some really good Mac-centric word processing and project management tools. –Letita

About 97% of my weekend was spent learning programs. Yeah, I said it. I spent damn near most of my waking 30-something hours learning WriteRoom, NoteBook, Pages, Scrivener and Bean, all word processing programs with different levels of power and functionality, designed to make me a leaner, meaner writing machine. Did I get any writing done for any particular project? No, but that wasn’t the point. The goal was to learn how each program would aid me in my writing and to figure out which program to call on when I needed to complete a specific task or project. For instance, if I simply wanted to journal or to get as many words out about a subject as I could, I’d turn to WriteRoom ($24.95), an old-school green-on-black text editor that fills up the entire computer screen, rendering the program completely distraction free. WriteRoom is all about letting the words come pouring out. I can’t seen them all, so I can’t edit them as I go, which is great ’cause it makes it that much harder for my little bitty hater to pull out the red correction pen of death. Now, if I wanted to compile research and have everything related to a project in one place, I’d crack open a fresh file in NoteBook. Once I’m ready to start comparing that research and tearing it down into its components, Scrivener comes out to play. I can write there if I want to as well, but I’m not sure about that yet. Transcribing from there is going to be great since I’ll have access to MP3 recordings and a text editor in one place. But actual writing may take place here or in Bean and will be finalized with electronic annotation in Pages, followed by a track changes review in Word, which would then be followed by a broad formatting overview in PDF just to make sure the forest is shaped up the way it’s supposed to be. As Lester Freamon would say, all the pieces matter.

I’m kind of mad at myself for not learning Pages ($79, bundled with Keynote and Numbers in iWork ‘09) sooner. Sh’Aaron told me she used it in lieu of Word and that it really was the superior program, but I didn’t believe her. She was right. Man, was she right. An all-in-one word processor and graphic design program that exports to .rtf, .pdf, and .doc and handles tables well, too? That’s pretty fantabulous in my book. It even lets you insert comments, view thumbnails of pages as you work on them—something I just learned Word was capable of as well, but the functionality is hidden in a submenu—and highlight text but only as paragraph fill which is basically the same thing InDesign does with paragraph rules. These Lynda.com classes have been better than I could’ve imagined; they’re really turning my curiosity on in a big way. I’m sure the Pages program boxed with iWork ‘09 is even more powerful, but I’ll stick with what I’ve got until I’m forced to upgrade. Just keep in mind that once you export a file, there’s no bringing it back in since the file converter in iWork ‘06 (the version I have) tends to crash.

NoteBook ($49.95) is much more powerful than I thought it was as well, but unfortunately it’s not very liquid. Maybe there’s a way to get shapes and arrows to flow with text when the window is resized in a writing page, but that doesn’t seem to work too well with notes pages. But NoteBook does well with photos, .pdf and .rtfd files. Word files, not so much. They’ve got too much going on and I think there’s something with some COCOA something or other program language that makes them fight. At the end of the day, the less you import .doc and .docx files into NoteBook, the better. I learned that NoteBook covers can be customized, as can tabs, divider pages, and paper colors. Hell, line and margin colors can be manipulated as well. The Inspector keeps track of when cells are added in note pages, but you can do the same thing on writing pages by adding a time/date stamp from a drop-down menu. The scissors icons next to clippings will take you back to the web page you clipped the information from via snap back or URL, right down to the exact passage or picture. Importing PDF files for annotation in NoteBook is a great boon to me because it allows me to look at the structure of the file rather than the content. Interestingly enough, it’s seeing the structure that allows me to catch flaws in the content. How’s that for craziness?

Bean (free ninety-nine), bless it’s heart, is just Bean. It’s what Word would be if it wasn’t trying so hard. Like Word, Bean isn’t the best at handling graphics and photos, but it can save in plenty of file formats, is amazing looking (i.e., clean), and it plays well with Scrivener, NoteBook, Pages and Gmail. That’s one of the most awesome things I learned about Bean: if I ever want to write a well-formatted email and I want that formatting to keep when I bring it over to Gmail, I can type it up in Bean first so that I know exactly what it will look like. It’ll look just like that, fonts, spacing and all, when you press command + v.

The only program I didn’t leave the weekend with an in-depth understanding of was Scrivener ($39.95). I think that’s because I’m waiting to get an actual project going there. I’ve got something I could be working on now, but I haven’t compiled all the pieces yet and won’t be able to until after the first of the year. Meh, I could play with a pretend project, but knowing me, it’ll turn into a real project and distract me from the project I should actually be working on this week. That’s OK, though. I’ll get the opportunity to shake hands with Scrivener soon enough.

Anybody else use a variety of word processors to crank out projects or use any of the afore mentioned programs in a different, more streamlined way? I wanna hear all about it, so deposit your five cents in the comments section below.

Do you remember the archaic and clichéd image of the 19^th century woman ducking into ye auld hat shoppe to find some frothy headpiece that would placate her frustrations? That’s so not me! Oh, I used to wear hats, at least to church. Didn’t every minister’s wife do the hat and white gloves thing? Fortunately for my hairdo, hats eventually became an optional adornment — and disappeared from my closet.

.

No, next only to a book store my “thing” is always a stationery store. I love browsing for fresh notebooks, handling pens to find one that my fingers find just right, and checking out anything that might make my novel writing more pleasurable, less frustrating.

.

So when one of my NaNoWriMo winner’s bonuses turned out to be a significant discount on a popular writing program I had to check it out. All the reviews on ‘Scrivener‘ seem to be positive so I finally succumbed to the fluttering “Shall I get it?” butterflies and clicked on “buy now” and “download”. Now I’ve done it! I have my hands on another toy — something else to spend time exploring instead of writing. But I’m hoping it will soon be like a new pen — a comfortable and productive new writing tool.

.

“Scrivener is a word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts such as novels and research papers.” It is only available for the Macintosh platform, OS X 10.4 or higher.

Features

	Edit Multiple Documents Create limitless documents in the same project and edit them separately or merge them dynamically and edit them as a whole.
	Corkboard Virtual index cards store a synopsis for every document you create. Storyboard and rearrange your project by moving them around on the corkboard.
	Outlining A fully-featured outliner helps you take control of the structure of your work.
	Keywords Use a powerful keywords system to keep track of characters, themes or ideas.
	Full Screen Editing View your text in full screen for distraction-free composition.
	Export Export your finished draft to your favourite word processor for final formatting, including support for footnotes, annotations and images.

.

Questions: What tools do you find indispensable for your writing? Do you use the ‘Scrivener’ software or any other writing software? Have you any recommendations or tips?

.

My thirty day trial of Scrivener will end in about another week. Easy purchase decision – definitely buying it. I love it as a writing tool.

If you asked me what was the most influential book I’ve read, I’d probably just claim the Tolkien opus. If you really forced me to narrow it from there, it would be the Lord of the Rings, eighth grade (that’s 1984-85 if you really want to know). The book that probably has had the most influence on me as a writer (or, perhaps more appropriately said, on what type of writer I want to be) would be Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew, say ninth grade.

I watched the film version of The Mist over the weekend during my delirium. I think they did an okay job presenting the basic setting, but made two enormous mistakes that ruined the whole thing. First, they sanitized the characters. King’s characters are generally pretty flawed. In the film version of the Mist, most of the little rough bits have been sanded away. Adultery scene? Gone, the lead is now too awesome to ever fall like that (which begs the question of why Mrs. Carmody would still refer to the female lead as a whore…). Second, and worst, they destroyed the ending, substituting the open ended, dark yet hopeful close of King’s version for a depressing, O’Henry-Meets-Clive-Barker end (I don’t dislike either – I’m just saying take an O’Henry ending and have Clive Barker make it dark and violent, and that’s what you have at the end of the Mist). King’s version ends with hope; this one ends with misery. Worse, and despite the explicit line in the story that the National Guard doesn’t roll in to save the day, the movie ending features the triumph of the US Armed forces over the fiends from the todash spaces. Basically, they took a great story and removed all of the power from it. It’s clean, action packed, and pointless.

I feel a rant coming on about the changes Peter Jackson made to sanitize death and afterlife in Lord of the Rings. But I will spare you. Because those are still really awesome movies that tried to hew close to the source, even if the deviations they did make were, err, horrible.

Draft zero of UFSS (Urban Fantasy Short Story) is complete. Again. It’s tentatively titled “An Interview in the Park” and is the tale of a young and desperate attorney in NYC who stumbles upon a strange opportunity.

The original Draft zero, completed during mid-summer, weighed in at just over 3000 words. A couple of rounds of revisions took Draft 2 to around 4000 words.

Based on some feedback and further noodling of the story, I’ve been doing some major surgery and adding a couple of big new scenes. Last night I banged out another 1200 words (and deleted some more), bringing the final new scene to a conclusion. Total word count is now at 5500 (Too Long!). Aiming to get that down to 5000.  Given how much was cut, there’s about 2000 new words here, all unedited, and it’s very rough. I was not feeling it last night, I could see the story but could not transform it into the words I wanted. (Scrivener’s full screen writing option was a serious help – I blocked out the world and just focused on the text.)

So it’s really Draft zero again.

Remember my post about Wordle, the Interweb thingy that turns text inputs into word clouds? I ran UFSS through wordle late last night. Fascinating. I’m going to upload the image tonight (nothing really spoilerish at all in it). Staggered & slightly worried at the number of times the word “looked” showed up. Not good. I knew I was overusing it during last night’s writing, but now I know how much. Fixable.

Anyway, yes! Draft zero done. This morning I realized – for the first time – that this story is expanding in scope and – again for the first time – I think I could build it out into a much larger work if I wanted. Maybe not a novel, but a novella, certainly. But I’m not going to do that. Not now.

And hey, borrowing from Cherie Priest, I’m going to add Writertopia’s widget to chart the progress.

An Interview in the Park (UFSS)
Words Last Night: 1200
Total Words: 5500
Status: Draft Zero Complete, Again. Yay!

Nu har jag passerat 400 000 tecken och 25 kapitel och det börjar bli mer än dags att skaffa sig ett riktigt bra program för att hantera text, kapitel, synopsis, fakta om karaktärer m.m. Vad ska man då välja? Jag letar på nätet och hittar.

• Scrivener
• Ulysses
• Pyroom

När jag jämför deras hemsidor känns ju Scrivener med sin slogan Literature & Latte klart tilltalande. Pyroom hemsida känns mörk. Ulysses modern. Jag letar vidare och hittar artiklar som rekommenderar scrivener och artiklar som rekommenderar pyroon. Efter en stund börjar Scrivener kännas Mac och Pyroom kännas PC. Inga svenska träffar på Ulysses. Blir jag klokare? Nej, egentligen inte. Till slut ger jag mig ut på twitter och frågar och se då får man svar. Och det snabbt!

Yes! Då kör vi. Scrivener blir det! Nu ska här downloadas program och importeras text. Ordning och reda hela natten lång!

Tack Isobel Hadley-Kamptz, MathiasWorbin och bokbilling för snabb respons!

Tillägg: Nu har jag hittat tutorials för Scrivener också!

For my NaNo novel I used a program I hadn’t tried before – Scrivener.

I have always used Word, making each chapter a new document, copying them to create new revised versions, sorting each version’s chapters into separate folders — first draft, revision 1, etc. When I’m revising, I may want to look at several chapters at once. That means multiple windows, each needing to have changes saved.

Using Scrivener is like having all your documents – scenes, chapters, notes, research, pictures — all of it on your desk in front of you. The screen has three parts- the Binder, where you can see all your documents organized and easily clickable; the Editing Pane, where your writing appears, and the Inspector, which holds a place for notes, status, key words, research citations, etc. The Binder and the Inspector can be closed, leaving you with just the Editing Pane, which can be split to show more than one document at a time.

The thing I like best is the index cards. I have always used index cards for everything – writing, notes to self, contacts, etc. The contents of every folder in Scrivener can be displayed as index cards pinned to a corkboard. The cards can be easily grabbed and moved around, even into other folders. I make a folder for each chapter, then individual documents for each scene. When I look at the corkboard, I can easily move scenes around. So much easier than scrolling through a document looking for the scene you want.

Another feature I love is Snapshots. As I’m editing my NaNo, I can take a Snapshot of each scene I’m changing, preserving the original version. If I don’t like my changes, I can revert to the Snapshot. It’s like time travel — with index cards.

Every day when I sat down to write, I could view a live bar graph showing my progress towards the final goal (50,000 words) and the session goal (1700 a day). I could easily view my total word count without going through every chapter. Some days, just seeing that bar fill up as I typed was all the motivation I needed. I really think it helped me finish.

When I got ready to upload my novel to the NaNoWriMo web site, I clicked “Edit Scrivenings” and was able to view the entire thing. Then I exported it into Word, one of the acceptable formats, though I could have chosen several other formats.

My days of folders and subfolders are over. I don’t have to remember what folder my notes are in or what I named them. I don’t have to think about what to name each chapter document so I can find it again. Scrivener is my new brain.

Fram tills nyss trodde jag att Word var i stort sett det enda verktyget för ordbehandling på dator. Så fel jag hade! Det finns ju massor av fina program, som verkligen förhöjer skrivupplevelsen. Här kommer tre godbitar.

1. Scrivener
Detta program passar den som skriver lite huller om buller och behöver hjälp med organisationen. Eller den som helt enkelt har ett stort material som kan vara svårt att överblicka. På korktavlan kan du enkelt sortera de olika delarna av texten. Dessutom finns det ett helskärmsläge där du kan skriva utan att bli störd av ett stökigt skrivbord. Gratis att testa i 30 dagar. Sedan kostar det några hundralappar.

2. Ommwriter
Ommwriter är ett väldigt grafiskt program, som verkligen inspirerar till att skriva. När du startar programmet rekommenderas du att använda hörlurar, eftersom programmet bygger mycket på ljud. Du kan välja mellan olika terapeutiska musiksnuttar att lyssna på  bakgrunden och olika mysiga tangentljud. Helt klart upplagt för att hamna i en skön skriv-trans. Än så länge beta och finns bara till mac. Men det är helt gratis att ladda ner.

3. Writeroom
Har faktiskt inte testat Writeroom, men principen verkar enkel – helskärmsläge for the win. Inte lika snyggt som Ommwriter dock, men det verkar finnas fler inställningsmöjligheter. Alltså bakgrundsfärg, typsnittsfärg, fler typsnitt och så vidare. Kan laddas ner och testas, men måste sedan köpas.

Som ett slags sammanträffande slutade litteraturprogrammet Babel precis. Känner mig plötsligt lite nördig.

You’re probably intimately familiar with some sort of word processing software, especially if you’re a writer. But, while Microsoft Word and similar programs are great for formatting a finished manuscript, business letters, and other documents, they may not be the best software for writing a story.

There are several programs out there for writers, and there’s a good reason for it. Traditional word processors force you to write linearly, or cobble together multiple documents if you don’t.  Good writing software can free you to write in the way that works best for you.

At a friend’s suggestion, I tried Scrivener (for Macs only) and ended up buying it well before the free trial ended. Each writing project is organized as a collection of files, all accessible from the same screen, much like being in Finder (or Windows Explorer).

I can write a scene–or an outline of a scene–when inspiration strikes, and save it for later (see Unused Scenes below). I can easily move scenes around, create scene cards for them, search for terms across all scenes, search by keywords, keep project and scene notes, import research documents and web sites, and so much more. I don’t know how I ever lived without it!

I use the Resources section to hold links to research web sites, a file where I keep track of my daily productivity, a character list, photos of places or character inspirations, character questionnaires, and most important of all, a folder called Unused Scenes, where I store cut scenes to scavenge for useful bits, and potential future scenes.

For those who are easily distracted, Scrivener even offers a full screen mode. And, in the end, you can export the whole project to Word, or another program, either fully formatted, or ready to format.

If you’re serious about writing, consider switching to software that works with your writing style, not against it.

The main writing screen…

Resources Section…

Happy Writing! (No Daily Squirrel today, this post is already long enough…)