Well, apparently, I’ve still got a blog from when I did my stint (read “Tour of Duty in Hell”) in Hollywood, but I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it. I suppose it has something to do with wanting to repress those memories — and believe me, they are good and repressed. They’re buried deeper than my memories of when I was an alter boy at Our Lady of Perpetual Blessings.
Anyway, since I don’t want to dredge up the Hollywood era, let’s talk about a subject that’s near and dear to my heart. It might not be a subject you want to talk about, but since it’s my blog, I get to call the shots. If you want to talk about something that you want to talk about, feel free to get your own damned blog, thank you very much.
Scrivener.
Scrivener is a software program designed for both Mac and Windows. (It was designed for Mac, actually, but all the Windows users were crying because they couldn’t get it, so the good people at Literature and Latte went and actually created the program for Windows, too — which is pretty damned cool, when you think about it.)
Magic
For me, Scrivener operates on the basic principle of magic. In other words, it’s an amazing tool, but I have no idea how it works. However, in its most basic form, it can be used to store a series of either scenes, chapters, notes, or anything else, within a single directory folder. Since my writing takes place in the form of scenes (or chapterettes, if I’m doing some prose work), this is perfect for me. I can focus on each individual scene. Then, when I’m done, I can shift the scenes as needed — adding and deleting as needed.
Outlining
It’s also a terrific outlining tool. Each scene can be viewed as an index card. This card, in turn, can effortlessly be moved into any position within the project, making the creation of a book from various scenes to be an unbelievably easy task. I was able to write a novel using 88 different scenes and assemble the book in less than 3 hours. After that, using Scrivener’s built-in export feature, I was able to create a Kindle book in mere minutes.
Look, there are about a hundred and fifty thousand other things that Scrivener does, but I don’t want to get into it here. What I suggest you do is go over to their website (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php) and download a 30-day trial.
It would also be very helpful for you to read some of the incredible things that the software does. Since I’m the kind of guy who likes to jump right in, I’ve skipped a lot of stuff — but I’m assured that I’m missing out on a whole lot of things.
Then again, that’s the story of my life.
