NaNoWriMo

Recently, I have been in a slump when it comes to writing. Family, School, and other conflicts sapped my time and energy like a mosquito at a red cross fundraiser. So where did I turn? NaNoWriMo. I am three days in and have already been motivated to write five times more than I had previously written in the past three months. 

So how does it work? They have great FAQs and instructions for how to get started. Once you've created your novel and writer's profile, they have forums, give aways, write-in hang outs, pep-talks, and a myriads of other resource to help motivate you to write and achieve your goal of 50,000 words in a month. Its a great way to meet other writers across the country and across the world. Connecting with people is as easy as clicking a button to add them as your "Buddy". Everyone is super friendly and its a great environment to be in.

Most of my creative juices this month are going toward Nano, so this post isn't going to be exhaustive in its coverage. The resources to learn about Nano are out there and easily accessible. Instead of wasting my time and your time remunerating them here, I'm going to get back to writing my novel, and let you do the same.

Click on the NaNoWriMo badge at the top of the post if you want to see my Nano profile.

Photo provided by: NaNoWriMo

Scrivener, A Good Place To Store Your Writer's Toolbox.

Scrivener is a word processor designed with the writer in mind. With countless features and functions, its use can be dynamic or static, but won't get in the way of the writing process. Any feature can be used as easily as it is ignored, dismissed as easily as it is brought up.

Here are some great tutorials on how to use Scrivener, but the purpose of this post is to show how Scrivener can help, not explain how to use it. These are the features I've found the most useful.

The Binder: Chapters, POV's, scenes, any size of text can be broken down into sub files, organized, rearranged, and searched. This allows large projects to be broken down into individual sized chucks and the search options prevent any file from becoming lost.

Target Word Count: Allows the writer to set a target word count and pops up a notification when the goal has been reached. Includes a progress bar showing percentage of completion.

Compose View: Allows the writer to tune out all on screen distractions, the screen is filled with a white sheet for text and a customizable backdrop. At the bottom is a popup bar that provides options for adjusting the transparency of the backdrop, the width of the paper sheet, navigating through separate files of text, and text view size. As the writer types, the curser stays in the center of the screen.

Corkboard View: Presents each file in the Binder as a note card. With the option to create a synopsis of what each files contains, Corkboard View makes it easy to see what is in each file and rearrange their order.

Group Mode: Shows groups of files in the binder, along with their individual target word counts and any other information tagged onto them. Great for seeing which parts of the story still need work.

Compile: This is where the real magic happens. Once a story is done, it can be exported in any format, as any file type, through any medium the author wishes. The process is a little complicated, but easy to understand. This makes it simple to share a PDF with one person, create an ePUB for amazon, or a .docx document for a query letter with no need to reformat the root text. Do it all with Scriveners compiler.

There is much much more Scrivener can do. There are custom icons for each file in the binder, meta-data, comments, footnotes, quick reference pop out windows, collections, inspector, labels, notes, scratchpad, name generator, audio notes and dictation, and a unique "Scrivenings" mode.

The best feature of Scrivener is that, while it is a powerful and robust tool, any part of the interface can be ignored as easily as it is implemented. Don't need an inspector? Don't know what "Scrivenings mode" is? Ignore them! The tools you do need are intuitive and will be easy for you to pick up without needing any tutorials to get started.

Scrivener's goal is get out of the way of the writing process and let creativity flow. I've found it to be useful. If you are interested in trying it for yourself, check it out here.