Tag Archives: Scrivener

Camp NaNoWriMo is A Go

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I didn’t intend for it to be, but I clicked on the link, logged in to see what it was all about, and then I was signed up.  Yes, I probably should have known better.  At the point, it became, “How can I do this?”

Well, I have a complete chapter structure laid out for Letters to My Grandchildren.  That’s as good as an outline, right?  I guess I’ll spend July working on that.  I fired up Scrivener.  I opened the project.  I saved the project to DropBox.  Now it will be easily available to the Macbook Air, so I’ll be able to work on it.  I guess I had better do some reviewing of the videos on Scrivener 2.  I’ve not paid much attention since I’ve been working on revision (which will continue), but I will want to use some of Scrivener’s new features, I suppose.

If you want to play along, there are two camp sessions this summer — July and August.  They are free (Maybe you have older kids who are boooooreeeeed?  Get ’em writing!).  It’s not too late.  Join me in the madness!

Note: For those of you accustomed to the robustness of the NaNoWriMo site, Camp NaNoWriMo offers pretty austere surroundings.  In fact, you’ll probably feel like a camper of one.  But isn’t that what a writer’s retreat is all about?

Small Steps

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NaNo is over, but now is when the real work begins.  Hubby is building framework for some concrete work, and he needs me to help with very tiny things that help help — usually something like turning the ON/OFF switch from one position to the other.

I’ve installed Scrivener 2.0 on the new MacBook Air and brought my NaNo file down from DropBox.  Now, I’m cleaning up the manuscript.  I’ve removed the words that don’t need to be there from the misguided start.  I haven’t thrown them away — they may be useful for something else.  Word recycling is a useful thing sometimes.

Now, I’m checking my timeline, changing the scene numbers to meaningful titles and summarizing the scene on the corkboard.  The split screen is coming in very handy for this.  I put one line of index cards in the top window.  I put the scene I’m working on in the bottom window.  I use the synopsis window in the Inspector to update the index card.  I use the custom meta data to update the timeline and the scene location(s).

This is just clean up work, but it should help ground me in the story.

I liked the first version of Scrivener, but version 2.0 has a lovely, clean feel to it.

If you missed it in the comments, the transmission on the truck self-destructed and will be replaced in it’s entirety.  They ordered one and anticipate getting it early next week.  I figured it would take until Wednesday, when I have to be back up there for a doctor appointment.

End of NaNo Notes

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I did win at NaNo.  I finished later this year than usual, but if you follow NaNo at all, you know that doesn’t matter. You have until midnight in your timezone on November 30 to finish and win.  What are some other notes to commemorate the end of NaNo?

I used the Beta 3 version of Scrivener for Windows on my tired, six year old Windows laptop.  Beta 1 was CPU intensive for a couple of reasons, but Beta 3 was very smooth.  If you’re a Windows die hard and don’t want to switch to a Mac just to use Scrivener, this software is for you.

I finished and uploaded my file to the NaNo counter late Sunday night.  Monday morning, I removed the first half of the book, because I switched gears midway.  I now have about 27k of words that I may be able to use.  I saved the deleted words.  They’re just not in the draft.

I had to come up to Central TX today to pick up mail and arrange to have it held for a few more days.  We’re not quite done with what we need to get done in San Antonio.  As I was making the turn to come into town, the truck beeped with an error of “Transmission Malfunction.”  I stopped at the house, unloaded the truck, and drove it the 15 miles to the Ford dealer who was too swamped with work to even put the machine on the truck to read the code for the problem.  The tech did tell it me it was probably safe to drive.  The error code did not come back on during the trip over or back.

My original plan was to wait for mail delivery on Wednesday, drive to Temple, get my blood drawn for my doctor appointment next week, then head home down I-35.  I’m going to attempt to do that.  This is where I’m thankful for two things.  First for purchasing extended warranty.  At 53,000 miles, I’m 3,000 miles into it, and if the transmission eats itself, the warranty will have paid for itself. Second, I’m thankful it’s a Lincoln.  They have a toll-free number and will send a tow truck to get it to a dealer.  I’ve already used this service twice, and it works great — right after I bought it when the transmission cable fell off as I was backing out of my driveway and earlier this year when the battery died (new vehicles become boat anchors when the battery dies).  Both fixed were covered under the original factory warranty.

Naturally, I hope it makes it back to San Antonio where I can deal with my service guy (who is fantastic) at my dealer (who is also fantastic).

Did I mention that we’re keeping this guy:

DSC00081

We’re calling him Tarzan.  Hubby said he almost killed both kittens today.  Tarzan and his sister, Mugsy,  climbed to the top of their crate (from the outside) and demolished a jigsaw puzzle we were working on.  I’m pretty sure Mugsy was the ringleader — she is most adventurous.  Hubby said pieces were everywhere.  I avoided mentioning that he encourages them to be creative, so they must have figured this was one more toy he created for them.

Since my laptop is six years old and starting to show signs of maybe not being reliable, I’ve decided to replace it with an 11.6″ Mac Air.  The Sony has 1M RAM and a 40G hard drive.  The Air has 2G RAM and a 64G solid state drive.  The only thing it lacks to be competitive with my Sony is a DVD read/write drive, and in the six years I’ve owned the Sony, I don’t think I’ve used it once.  In every other way, it’s competitive with or superior to my Sony and cost 1/3 as much.  UPS delivers it tomorrow.  I’m looking forward to trying this one out.

More NaNo Preparation

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Sunday is rapidly approaching, and that means NaNoWriMo kicks off.  I want to be ready to write.  I have 31 scenes on Scrivener notecards.  The plan is for those scenes to average about 1900 words each.  Last night, I read through the printout while watching the Spurs lose in Chicago and marked a “why” beside everything I could find that would warrant one.  I have a good picture in my mind of my two main characters, what they’re trying to achieve, and that someone is trying to stop them.  The problem is, I don’t know who that someone is yet.  I have suspects, but I’m not quite sure.

Is it the delinquent mid-twenties son of Cody’s aunt, the former chairman of the GarFest committee?  Is it the slothful son of one of the prominent citizens who’s angry his mother was passed over for the chairmanship (but why would he care?)?  Is it Cody’s rival from high school who is tired of always being second fiddle to him?  Is it the half-breed from the local Indian tribe angry that the GarFest trivializes a fish he holds sacred?  Is it someone I’ve overlooked?  Is it one of the former committee members who quit in a huff after the 89th Annual Festival last year?  Who could have everyone in town nervous about helping out and backing away?

That’s what I have to figure out today.

NaNo Preparation

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National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is just around the corner.  Are you ready?  Have you remembered to renew your information from  last year?  What are you working on? This year, thanks to Valerie, I’m doing a category romance.  I haven’t done as much preparation as I’d hoped, but I have … Continue reading →

More Outlining Work

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While in San Antonio, I fired up QuickPlot on the laptop (WinXP, so no Scrivener).  After doing the story arc math from Jennifer Crusie’s RWA Handout posted over at Argh Ink and plugging it in, I began transferring my notes I’d printed from Scrivener before leaving Central Texas.  The first … Continue reading →