Workspace screencap

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John Scalzi recently said (too lazy to link) that he likes composing his novels in WordPress because he can set the writing space to “full screen” so nothing shows but the edge of the browser. I’m trying that feature right now for the first time and I feel a little self-conscious about it. What if someone walks by my library table right now? Their gaze will have only one thing to fall on, and that would be this text.

Okay, turning things back to normal now.

Anyway, like a lot of writers, I’ve switched to Scrivener as my writing software, but I sorta don’t like it. Sure, it has (too) many features and a long list of ways to tweak the screen, but to me it’s too fussy.

I don’t like the way it handles searches. I don’t like the prominence of the fake index card/synopsis stuff. I have no use for their character/setting sketch templates. There are so many menu items and checkboxes that it can take forever for me to find something simple, like the title of the story which gets auto-inserted into the file in certain places. And it’s a resource hog.

The search thing is a big deal.

It does have useful features: The session wordcount has been incredibly useful for my productivity. The ease with which I can keep two files open at once has saved me a lot of time as I keep track of names and places. And there’s the compile.

The reason I decided to drop the money on Scrivener, finally, was because of the ease with which it creates ebooks out of its text files. They’re solid files, too, without errors, and once I got past the learning curve they turned out to be relatively easy to handle. Their website has a video tutorial (complete with the obligatory English-accented narrator) who makes it look a little easier than it is, but if I figured it out, most anyone can.

But that learning curve was a pain in the ass.

Here’s what it looks like:

Scrivener Screencap

In the upper left, the chapters are color-coded by POV characters. The files in the folder “Goof” are all the crap I need to keep track of when I write the book. It’s a great relief to dispense with the notepad of handwritten names I used to carry with me.

Covering those files is the word count, which is a floating window. It might seem smarter to move that to the lower right, but I’m going to be putting important plotting info into those document notes (or Custom Meta-Data, whichever seems best) Real Soon Now. I’ve been putting off doing a timeline, which isn’t smart but what the hell. It’s boring.

In the upper right you can see the synopsis. I pretty much do these chapter by chapter, writing down what should happen next, then going through the bullet points (even though I uses dashes instead of bullets). Annoying thing: There’s a character limit in the synopsis window so the synopsis also has to go into the body of the text.

Finally, down the center, are the two open files. The top one is the chapter I’m working on (which is a first draft, people so be gentle). The bottom is the file in the goof that I expect to reference.

Anyway, I do sorta like that each chapter is its own file, and that I can open the whole manuscript at once by clicking the folder containing the manuscripts. The nice thing about Scrivener is that the folders are text documents, too.

So, Scrivener… not perfect, but useful. And I spent money on it so I’m not going to switch. (Plus the ebooks thing, seriously.)

The prize for the World Fantasy Award apparently includes freedom

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I went to see Nancy Pearl interview Jo Walton at the UW Bookstore last night. It was an opportunity to chat briefly with some local folks I only know from online (which was a nice surprise; usually I slip in and out of these things without talking to anyone) and of course Jo Walton is a very smart person.

One thing she said that stuck with me (the whole session will air on the Seattle Channel in the near future, so you can probably hear everything she said when (if) it goes online) was that she can’t have the usual fantasy writer’s career–defined as working on a long-running series or two within a particular subgenre, and she didn’t say it in a pejorative way–because she’s too easily bored. When she was supposed to be writing the fourth book in the King’s Peace series, she couldn’t force herself to do it, and she wrote Tooth and Claw instead.

Luckily, it was accepted by her publisher. Then she added that, when she won the World Fantasy Award with it, it gave her the freedom to write what she wanted. She went from Victorian dragons to alt-historical parody mysteries, and has now released Among Others, which I haven’t read but seems to be a semi-autobiographical coming of age story with magic and a gigantic reading list.

In other words, she’s writing whatever she wants.

Unsaid (by her) is that she’s a smart and skillful writer which, you know, helps. But I hadn’t expected her to attribute so much to an award.

Maybe that’s my prejudice, since I’m not all that interested in them (don’t expect to see me post a list of my award-eligible works any time soon) and it’s possible that she’s placing too much weight on it.

Still, it’s thought-provoking. There’s an awful lot about the publishing/genre ecosystem that I don’t understand.

How DARE you write such a negative review!!!

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This review is too mean!! Obviously this is all just envy! This review is less professional than the book! Grammar doesn’t matter if the book is entertaining! You mean women should deal with your mental health issues! This review is a personal attack on the author!

(I’d suspect linkbait if there were ads on that page)

Writing and productivity

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Holy crap, you guys. Yesterday I wrote over 3500 words yesterday. I am never that productive. Never.

Long time readers know I’ve been working on my productivity for years. I used to write two pages a day and crap out. I thought I could never do more.

Well, blah blah blah, I’ve been trying to do better, and it’s working out. I’m not writing faster because I’m writing sloppier; it’s because I’m changing the way I work so I can focus more.

You know what else helped? This:

Guest Post: How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day.

I’m not doing exactly what this author is doing: I don’t write out the upcoming plot points on a legal pad, I type them into the end the actual file and delete them as I go through. I also don’t have a spreadsheet, mainly because: spreadsheet. However, I am finding that, the more quickly I work, the happier I am with the sentences I put down. There are fewer word echoes, at least.

Anyway, I’m off to do today’s pages and if history is any judge, today is going to be incredibly difficult.

Pain and Goals (a weight loss post)

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Back in early November, when I was planning out all these posts, I threw “Pain” and “Goals” together because I figured I wouldn’t have a lot to say about them. But this is the last of the posts I had planned, and it turns out that these two things go together better than I expected. Continue reading

Randomness for 1/11

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1) Rick Santorum quotes as New Yorker cartoons.

2) The 50 most brilliant, obnoxious, or delightfully sociopathic Facebook posts of 2011.

3) The TSA’s biggest success stories of 2011, and what it means.

4) Photo tour of a remote home in the Adirondacks that was built over (and includes) an old missile silo.

5) War Horse: An Illustrated Review

6) Charles Stross makes some predictions for the future. This worked out so well for Heinlein…

7) 10 Stubborn Body Myths That Just Won’t Die, Debunked by Science

A book-lending experiment

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Update: someone has volunteered to borrow the book. Thanks, everyone.

I wonder if there are any Kindle owners who have Prime Memberships at Amazon.com out there willing to do me a favor?

Amazon.com has started up a lending library system through its Kindle device. It’s only open to people with Prime Memberships (which previously only provided expedited shipping) but they will allow you to borrow books one at a time.

For me, I’ve decided to enroll one of my short stories in the program for the usual reason: money. Amazon says they’ve created a half-million dollar kitty to be shared among all the authors whose work is borrowed each month, which each “borrow” equalling a single “share” of the overall money.

It’s a clever idea. They’re crowd-sourcing their lending program to people like me (and here I am blogging about it) for a set amount of money. What’s more, if the system is seriously underutilized they could probably fudge the data however they like. Who would know?

Anyway, I wonder if someone eligible for the program would be willing to borrow my short story The Bone Orchid? It’s an original story set in the city of Pald, a setting I’ve written about before.

I’m curious to see how big the shares are and what sort of buy-in they have. Amazon isn’t famous for sharing numbers, but I’d like to see how this comes out. And of course I’ll blog about it.

Thanks.

Reviews, Part 33

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1) Bethany Warner at Word Nerd liked Circle of Enemies: “This Connolly [is the] one Best Discovered Author for me from the Word Nerds this year, the series is that good. Check it out.”

2) Marilee J. Layman read all three books in The Wooden Man omnibus and liked them: “I’d really like another book or so of these.”

3) Yaz at Yaz’s Books N Stuff thought Child of Fire was “refreshingly unique”: “An enjoyable read, I look forward to more of Ray’s adventures.”

4) Garrett at Ranting Dragon liked Circle of Enemies: “… a novel of deep insight and character development.”

5) Former SFBC editor Andrew Wheeler at The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent. liked Circle of Enemies very much, and wishes the series could continue: “The Twenty Palaces books come from the world of Jim Thompson and David Goodis, where all choices are bad and all ends are horrible — where just surviving one more day and keeping yourself from getting into more trouble is a major achievement. The magic in these books has the danger and threat of old fairy tales and worse: touching it once marks a person for life.”

6) k reads at So I Read This Book gives Child of Fire an A: “You can probably tell that I really liked this book. The voices of the characters are clear and believable and the plot moves swiftly, with not a moment wasted.”

7) Fritz “Doc” Freakenstein at Guardians of the Genre expected to hate Child of Fire but very much didn’t: “Not much time is spent on either explaining the magical rules or the origins of the Twenty Palace Society that Ray and Annalise work for. This causes a bit more work for the reader than I’m used to, but it works for Child of Fire in that it forces you to focus on the plot at hand and work out the magical rules for yourself.”

Quick note, this is the last review round up post. I may link to one or two reviews in the future, depending, but not every one I see.

Look what showed up at my door this weekend:

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Stephen Blackmoore’s new novel is out from Penguin (in trade, no less) and over at the B&N review blog, Paul Goat Allen gives it a terrific review, saying: “… the story is relentlessly paced and literally filled with nonstop action from the first page to the last” and “If City of the Lost is any indication, Stephen Blackmoore could be the illegitimate lovechild of James Ellroy and George Romero – zombie noir at its bloody best!”

And I’m all: Damn. It’s a zombie novel? I knew the guy came back from the dead, but I didn’t know it was zombies. Still, it just got a great review from a guy who wouldn’t look at a twenty dollar bill if it had my name on it.

I plan to crack the spine after I read a few of the things I Absolutely Must Read First, but if you like fast-paced UF shoot ’em ups (and zombies) check this one out. (Amazon B&N)

I just don’t feel like leaving my apartment today.

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Nothing else to add to that. My wife and son come home from their east coast trip this evening (they’re in JFK as I write this) and the place is all cleaned up.

But I’m sick of going to the same Starbucks all the time. I’m going to break out my standing desk and try to do my work at home. Usually that doesn’t work, but the hummingbirds are out and I’m bored with the usual walk.

Also, back in my post about the end of the Twenty Palaces series, I said that A Blessing of Monsters would be complete in one volume. Turns out that’s not going to happen. It’s just spinning further and further out.

Logging off to work.