Back from the Brink

Oh, boy, folks, have I had a crazy few weeks. Grab a cuppa coffee/tea/wine/beverage of your choice and let me tell you all about it.

So I needed a mini break of blogging because I hadn't quite figured out how to manage my writing, my "new" job, family, life, and blogging all at the same time. I think I've figured it out now, so we're gonna try a trial of me blogging on Tuesdays and Saturdays for a while, and see how it works. Please bear with me as I reintegrate myself into the blogosphere.

This is your brain on editing.
Any questions?

Then there was the writing. In late October not only was I trying to manage some pretty intense revision on my novel (currently listed on my WIPs page as FIGHTING FATE, though I plan to change the title to IN FLAMES). I wanted to get a full round of revision finished before NaNoWriMo started, while also juggling my NaNo prep. That took a LOT out of me, and I edited until my brains turned into liquid goo. Seriously. It was messy.

My own personal NaNo shield

On November first, having finished that round of editing, I was happy to accept my NaNo fate. I greeted it with a warm, strong handshake. And on the fateful afternoon of November 1st, I had an extra meeting with my boss, wherein he asked me to work overtime in preparation for our display at an upcoming conference (I work for a small, specialty academic publisher). And in my inner ear, I heard my NaNo plans go *squish*. My boss and I negotiated trading the days in early November for days around Thanksgiving, so not all was lost, but it put some stress on my NaNo plans nonetheless.

As of November 12th, one-third of the way through the month, I had only written about 14K over the course of 4 authentic writing days. Ouch.

On the morning on November 13th, as I'm leaving my house to pick up a friend, I grab my phone to let her know I'm coming, and see that I have a missed text message from my boss--who, I might add, never sends me text messages. It said, more or less, that he was in the hospital, post-surgery after having had a heart attack. Everything okay. Call to talk about conference prep. SERIOUSLY. My boss is in the intensive care unit on a Sunday morning and wants to talk about conference prep. Now, granted, the conference started on the 17th. My boss isn't really all that Type-A, but we did still have a lot of work to do, and that essentially took the editorial side of our house from 3 to 2 employees doing the bulk of the work (we have a few work-study students, but regular employees, we are three). So now add more overtime work to my schedule over the next three days, making the first day of the conference (Nov 17th) day 5 for writing. Not a good sign.

See how the Jell-O powder gets all goopy with a little water?

Not to mention that on the 17th and the 18th I was about as worthless a writer as an uncooked box of Jell-O, from working 10hour days three days in a row, and the emotional turmoil of talking to my boss on the phone while he was doped on morphine and falling asleep. Yup, powdery Jell-O.

Somehow, though, I managed to pull a few days writing between 5-6K. Don't ask me how. Perhaps some superhuman feats of strength that even kryptonite couldn't squelch. Who knows? But I have to attribute at least a little of my success to Hart Johnson and her stupendous idea for hour-long sprint-writing sessions. I think those were ultimately my saving grace. Coordinated over Facebook, I would periodically join Hart, among others, on these sprints, and both the time and the community support helped a ton.

And, imagine, through all of that, I actually won!

Granted, according to my word verification, I only have 50,002 words, but I don't care! I'm 2 words over what they need (although, according to my Scrivener file, I have 50,019), and that's what matters.

Anyway, now it's December. A little over two weeks until the holiday break comes, which will entail lots of time with family, friends, and fruitcake. I'm already celebrating by eating too many sweets and listening to Christmas music while I cook and bake. And, dangit all, I am MAKING these cookies if it kills me. I just have to find some sweet rice flour first...

Be seeing you around the blogosphere!

Review of Scrivener

For those of you who are writers, whether you are technologically savvy or not, I would like to recommend Scrivener, a program developed specifically with the novelist in mind. With all the hype surrounding different programs for NaNoWriMo, I decided to take a step away from my traditional Word and try something different, and Scrivener offered a NaNoWriMo trial version that lasted not 30 days, but until December 7. So I tried it. Now I will never go back.

Scrivener's design is user-friendly for the every-day operations. Each "page" is meant to be an individual scene. You can title it anything you want without it printing (though see below on my inability to make this work at first), which makes them easy to find. There's a list to the left of all of your scenes and chapters (in this list, folders are chapters, and when you Compile it, they are automatically numbered in chapters without your numbering them). You can see each "file" clearly, and drag them up and down to rearrange.

You can also rearrange your scenes easily on a "cork board".You simply drag the note card to where you'd rather it be. The entire "file" with all of your text automatically moves without the nastiness of cutting and pasting and hoping the clipboard's not too full already.

To the right, there are a number of helpful tools. The two I found most helpful were 1) the notes and 2) the links. You can leave yourself any amount of notes for the scene or chapter that will never be printed in your compile or counted in your word count. In Word, I would simply type these in for myself and highlight them or change the color of the text, but then I would get an inaccurate word count. This is ideal for those of you who are as forgetful as I am in terms of adding this action, or who want to give yourself ideals as you read through without heavily revising at any given moment. The links option is also great because it gives you direct access to your research from the same file.

Another great option in this program are the character and setting sketches. It's wonderful to have quick access to your characters without opening other files. You can even include a picture. None of the notes in these "files" are included in your word count (although you can have them included with a simple click of a check box), but are still right at your fingertips. You can even include pictures, which I LOVE.

For more detailed information on any of these features, Scrivener tutorial videos can be found here.

Bottom Line: If you write novels, this will spoil you to no end, and you won't be able to go back to Word ever again :)