My Writing Nightmare

At least that's the way I used to think of it. I am so bad about jumping from one project to another one before I can wrap up my story. I have  four novels I've started. The first one I started five years ago. It is completed, but there is something wrong with it. I love the story, but I can't do anything with it because I know there is an issue.

I broke down and hired a professional editor to look over the first three chapters. There were a lot of comments, but the main ones came down to it being confusing and not enough conflict.

What am I going to do about it? Toss it in the trash and move on? No, I love the story.

Five years ago, I wanted to be a writer. I had no clue how to write a book, but I opened a word file and began typing. I had no idea how to plot. I had no idea about conflict or motivation. If someone said POV, I was lost.

That's about the time I discovered online classes. Wow!

I've rewritten the story a dozen times. Each time I add something  I learned in all the wonderful writing classes. I put what I thought was motivation and conflict.

The hero is a werewolf. The heroine is a werewolf hunter. Yeah, this is the story that is confusing and has no conflict.

There is a reason I have four novels started. I get to a point that is hard, and I jump ship, only to climb onto another boat that has a different problem.

I'm going back to my original novel. I opened up a new file. I no longer use Word, but Scrivener, but the process is the same. I'm starting with a blank page and rewriting the story.

Why am I blogging about my apparent failure to write a readable book? I am a writer. I may not be Stephen King, or Nora Roberts, or JK Rowling. But I am me, and I will write a book I am proud to say I wrote. My journey may take longer than others, but I am determined to do what I want to do. Write

Look for my novel, to be completed by years end. My deadline, December 31. Ya' know what? I changed my mind.

In my house we joke about me not having a birthday this year. My birthday is December 22. The day after some believe the world will come to an end. It won't come to an end. I will turn 45 this year, and life will continue.

But just in case. I want to finish this story before the Apocalypse.

Scrivener

 A few weeks ago, I saw a workshop on Savvy Authors Scrivener. It was  a free workshop, so naturally I took advantage. 

I had heard about it before and was interested, but it was only for Mac, which I don't have. Well, they recently came out with a Windows version, so I downloaded it and started playing around. 

Holy Macrel!!!

I have always loved organization, but this is way beyond an organize freaks dream. The best thing is that it takes next to no time to organize things in it.

There are certain things every writer has to make sure is included in their story and other things to make sure remains consistent. I have always made notes of these things, character descriptions, traits, backgrounds. When writing scenes, I have to know my goals, and motivations, etc...

With scrivener, I can have all of this information right on the screen, or at the push of a button. If someone were to tell me this before I knew scrivener, I would think, "Yeah, sure and all the writing would be teeny tiny, too." But that isn't the case.

I admit, I've been thinking of getting a larger monitor since I started working with Scrivener, but the one I use is plenty big enough if I were to be honest with myself. I bought my 21 inch monitor before they started making all TVs and monitors widescreen, so it is square.

I used to sit down at a blank Word page and try to write. Now, I open Scrivener. I see the Binder on the left. It is a list of every document I have. It is in any order I want, and it can be color coded if I want. In the center is the Editor. That is the document I choose to work with.

On the right is the Inspector. That keeps all the information about a document. It can be removed from the screen, or I can keep it right there where I can refer to it anytime. What can I put there? Anything. I like to keep my goals, motivations, conflicts, and possible decisions my character needs to make. I can look at notes I made on the story in general, or notes on the scene or chapter.

I can also split the screen and have more than one document up at once. This is something I always wanted to do. Yeah, I can have more than one document open on Word, but I can't look at them side by side. Once when I went to the accountant, she had two monitors so she could see more than one window. I admit, I considered buying another monitor so I could do this.

There is also a corkboard screen. That is for those that like the 3x5 card method to look at information. I don't care for it all that much, but I do like that if I get to a point I'm not sure what should happen, I have information I can look at in more than one way to jog my brain.

Would I recommend Scrivener to a friend? Oh, yeah. I invite everyone to check it out.

What are the drawbacks? Before I send it out, I have to export it to Word. But, it takes seconds to do that. I have gotten used to using the comment section with Word. It is when I am doing a general read, and want to take notes for when I edit.The comments are there, but separated so the text remains the same.  With Scrivener, I change the color and write within the body.

I admit, I am not familiar with everything, but I'm working on it. I'll give a Scrivener update should I come across something that is fabulous.