Scrivener update and a great writing day!

If you've been following my blog, you'll know that I got laid off six months ago. When I lost my job, I lost my motivation to write. All of my goals for the year flew out the window. It wasn't for a lack of trying, though. I did start up my computer every day and open my various WIPs, waiting for inspiration to strike. Unfortunately, scenes only hit me at night in my dreams and washed up as soon as I woke for the day. This time should have been flooded with time to write, and I should have been able to release more books than I did last year.

Yeah, didn't happen.

It's now the last day of August. There are only four months left of the year. Back in July, I did a post on a writing program called Scrivener. I'd heard a bit about it from other authors and decided to download the trial version. Right away I was impressed with the program. I went through the tutorial, and as soon as it was over I dove in, importing one of the Primordial Guardian novels I'm working on. My favorite things about Scrivener are that you have a visible synopsis of your entire story on the left side of the screen. I imported scene by scene, labeling the general gist of that part, and lo and behold...a synopsis. Instead of hopping back and forth in a Word doc and trying to piece things together that way, I can just fit scenes right where they're supposed to be with a click-n-drag.

Surprisingly, it got me excited about writing again. I didn't have to remember the entire story to work on scenes, I could look at that section on the left, click on where I wanted to write, and...well, write.

Another thing I love about this program is that I can take screenshots of my scenes before/after changes. There is also a section for notes. I do use that section randomly throughout the scenes, but for the most part, I go to the tab for the whole document and make reminder notes there. For example, I'm currently working on a Highlander novel, and if I forget to add in some detail before moving on to new scenes, I just go into the main doc and add my note there. I'm almost done writing my first draft for this novel, so when I'm ready to go through the entire book again, all I need to do is check my notes (I'll probably print them, the list is soooo long now), and check them off one by one.

Not only has it motivated me, but it also organized me. I've even told my Writer Chic group about it, and I know that one (if not more) is giving it a try now.

Alrighty, now I'll move onto my news of a great writing day. As previously mentioned, I'm almost done with my first draft on my Highlander novel. I always seem to get into serious writing mode when I'm this close to the end, but I'm pleased with the progress I made yesterday. In the past, I've had 7,000 word days, but it's been quite a while since I've had that type of motivation (and the time to use it). Lately I've been averaging somewhere between 1,000-2,000 words, but last night I wrote a little over 3,500.

I guess my hero and heroine are finally ready to tell the rest of their story so it can be shared with the world.

Scrivener

For a while now, I've seen a lot of other authors talking about Scrivener. I've pretty much just sat back and waited for the pros and cons to come in, not really sure if I wanted to give it a try. But for the past few months, I just haven't really been able to get into writing. At times, my characters are persistent and I just can't get them out of my head - of course, that's always when I'm trying to catch some sleep in the middle of the night, if I'm on a drive or at the grocery store, or doing something else that I just can't drop and write. Whenever I free of some time to put my fingers to the keyboard, they're silent, or bickering about who I should write at the time.

In one of my WIP's, the characters are lobbing scenes at me, completely out of order, and I find that I spend more time trying to figure out where to put it, that it really just eats up my writing time.

Enter Scrivener.

From what I've heard/read, this program helps authors keep things in order, and organizes research, etc. so it's all in one place. So, I've decided to give it a try. I downloaded the Trial version, and will see if it really helps keeps things organized for me, since at the moment, my thoughts are everywhere at once.

So, wish me luck, I'm about to go through the tutorial, and then I'm going to try to get all of my jumbled thoughts into this program and see if it can help me make sense of it.