Crow with a Side of Rook Pie

I think writers are opinionated people.  We kind of have to be in order to put down our ideas with any confidence.  I’d say non-fiction writers might be more opinionated by nature, but I doubt it.  What does that have to do with my humble meal?

Writing programs.  I’ve tried so many.

Write It Now
Write Way Pro
Yarny
StoryWeaver
Storyist
yWriter
Liquid Story Binder
Scrivener

And I think there have been a few others.  Some are simple, some complex.  All seemed a waste of time.  I mean, I have Word.  I can do anything I need to do in Word.  I can write, I can brainstorm, I can insert pictures–everything.  Adding software that you have to take time to learn and to use is just a waste of time.

One of the big arguments–ok selling points–of these programs (or many of them) is how you can move scenes around easily etc.  Well, I don’t write like that.  I start at the opening line and write linearly.  Moving scenes around would mean that I’d have to pull out information here and there and over there because my scenes build on one another–there’d be spoilers of things that didn’t happen yet.  It’d be a mess.

So, I arrogantly talked about how how all a writer needs is a simple word processor.  All the other bells and whistles are just time-wasters.  Of course, I spoke of myself, but if I’m honest, I think I suspected it was true of almost everyone.  I gave up the idea of fancy software and trusted my beloved Word.

Then I started planning Webster’s Bakery.  There are a lot of components–scenes if you will– that have to be included.  I need them to be interspersed both randomly and yet without too many negatives or positives bunched in one area.  I’m not talking every other one or anything, but still.  I can’t tell one person’s story and move onto the next. That’s not how it works.

It became tedious trying to figure out if the debate over women in ministry should happen before the funeral or after.  I had Christmas cookies happening before Thanksgiving.

I buckled.  I downloaded Scrivener.  Trial version.  I figured if NOTHING else, maybe it’d help me figure out my list of scenes in order.  Then I could go back to Word.  Sure, I could have worked with actual index cards and spread them out on the table, but it’s HOT here in the desert (107 tomorrow!) and, well, we have LOTS of fans on in our house.  TURBO fans.  HUGE METAL THINGS that don’t move air, they blast it.  We all know what would have happened to those cards.

So, by the time I got done creating every scene, it looked like this

Now, the picture cut it off but there’s still more under that side scroll bar (that’s hiding) down by the white arrow (also hiding–I think it heard I was at camp and ran!).  Yeah.  Even making them as tiny as possible, I couldn’t fit them all on a screen.  Skeery.

Then, because I needed a break from Valle de Morado, I played with other features.  Added character cards.  Found pictures of who they look like to me.  Added info.  Didn’t do the Character Worksheets, but I’d already done that in my planning file in excel.

By the time I was done, I went to Scrivener and decided to buy it.  For 40 bucks, it seemed worth it.  I remembered that they had a special offer for winners of NaNoWriMo, so I dashed over there to see if maybe it was still good.  It was.  50% off.  I got the whole stinkin’ thing for 20 bucks.  I’m writing all of Webster’s Bakery in it this month.  I’ll let you know how I like it at the end, but I suspect I’m going to be doing all new books in this.

Hey, who took the salt?  I need something to help me choke down this crow.