Pay List: Writing (Scrivener)

Of all the things on my Pay List, writing is the easiest and the hardest.  Easy because I love it.  Hard because I need to get it right.  It also requires discipline, which seems to have diminished in the wake of retirement.  While multi-tasking has always been a part of my life, I suppose now I allow myself to be more easily distracted, creating an increased need for organizational tools.

A couple of weeks ago I posted my budding storyboard.

---

It grew to look like this.

Storyboards by their very nature are cumbersome.  I remember years ago my idol, Barbara Parker, gave a talk on creating a storyboard.  She said she had taped all her story notes all over her kitchen cabinets.  I like the picture of that, but I suspect Steve wouldn’t.

I started the current one on a poster board like the kids use.  Semi-portable, except the stickies fall off unless they are secured with a bit of tape.  Previously, I’ve used my bulletin board.  Not so portable.  Once I taped it all on the back of the door.  Not portable at all.  The last novel I used a table in MS Word for my Storyboard.  Portable but cumbersome to reorganize or access in the middle of a thought.

---

I write on a 13” MacBook Pro, which is infinitely portable.  And I work in almost every room of the house, on the patio, and on the treadmill.  What’s a girl to do?

I sat next to Rick Wymer during the Florida MWA meeting in March.  At SleuthFest 2014, he attended a session by Chris Kling about the Scrivener content-generation tool for writers.  I had heard about it previously and had a total misconception about it features and benefits, thinking it forced the writer into a certain format.  Au contraire.  I was sadly uninformed.

A word-processing screen.

Rick chatted about the program, mentioning that it has a full featured word processor and so much more.  There are options for writing formal papers such as a dissertation.  There is a totally open template, which appears in the word-processing picture below.  And, there is an option for novels.  It incorporates a corkboard for storyboarding, which is what captured my attention, and has a place for character sketches.

The software was originally developed for MAC, and while the PC version isn’t as powerful, recently major refinements were made to it.  (Hey, I have a MAC!)  He also mentioned the reasonable cost—by then I was thinking $LOTS—but the MAC version is $45.  

His enthusiasm was contagious.  I went home and downloaded the trial from Literature and Latte.  The nice folks provide a thirty-day full-access version (thirty contact days, not calendar days).  I saw something on the site that alerted me to buy from the Apple App Store for convenient updates, so that is what I did just two days later.  I started one file for my miscellaneous writing, which includes my blog posts and book reviews.  

---

And I started a file for Imperfect Obsession, my next planned title in the Imperfect Series.  I typed in all my existing sticky notes, have since added more to the corkboard, and easily rearranged the items.  Everything I included—character sketches/sheets, pictures, research articles, web links, notes, and chapter “outlines”—is accessible from within the program.  I'm so excited.

Now I have a poster board that only holds a map of my fictitious city.

Anybody need a fresh, hardly ever used storyboard?

GEB