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Scrivener 3 – An Honest Review
Readers of these posts will be aware I’m a great fan of Scrivener – and now Scrivener 3 – as a writing tool. It enables detailed planning and has a really good system of structuring…
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Conquer outlining using Scrivener and Scapple
I’m a big fan of Scrivener as a writing tool and recently began outlining a new novel (the fifth in the Inspector James Given series). As always, procrastination took over and I searched for ideas on how to make the process easier. I found an exceptionally good video on outlining from Abbie Emmons, which is…
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Editing – Now the real work begins
Writing a novel is one thing. Editing it to be fit to be published is quite another. A workshop I attended with the excellent Brian Langan of Storyline Editing compared the various stages of redrafting to making a bed. The first draft looks like the covers have just been thrown over, some trailing on the…
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Scrivener and multi-strand plots
It’s well known that Scrivener is one of the most versatile and useful programs around for creative writing, although it does take a little getting used to, and there are some annoying differences between the Mac version and the Windows version. Also the lack of an Android version is a distinct disadvantage if, like me,…
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Where do I write?
Every time we sit down to write, our objective is to let those good old creative juices flow and the perceived wisdom seems to be that the more comfortable we are in our space, the more likely this is to happen. For many years, after the word-processor became accessible, my writing place of choice was…
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Research – is it a step too far?
I’m a procrastinator in my writing. In real life I’m pretty good at making decisions and figuring out the shortest path between two points. My creative self is significantly different. First of all I plan. Some time ago I discovered the joys of Scrivener after working my way through FreeMind, Writers’ Cafe and half a dozen other…
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A new project
So the final draft of my Inspector Given sequel is finished and with my publisher for consideration, it’s also been submitted to a couple of agents and I’m sitting here with fingers crossed – making the typing much more difficult than it needs to be. I’ve had some excellent help from my daughters and their…
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Sorted!
A couple of years ago I damaged my back so now find it difficult sitting at a desk for long, consequently I use a laptop in a good armchair when I’m writing. This still wasn’t a problem whilst doing the edit on a paper copy, the way I prefer. However, over recent weeks I’ve been…
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Editing can be fun – or so they tell me.
On Sunday afternoon a wonderful thing happened. I finished the first draft of my second novel. I’m not a Stephen King-type 2,000 words a day writer but I had been consistently pushing out 600-1,000 words every day for the past two or three weeks trying to get the job done. Coming to the end was…
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The joy (?) of being an author
I’ve had my head down for weeks, so apart from five hours a day wasting time on my newly discovered Twitter (@charliegarratt3), I’ve been redrafting the novel, working title: Let Venom Breed. Back at the end of June I was in the mire, still 20k words short of target and lost down narrative arc alley.…
