Writing Life.

So, it is day 16 of this NaNoWriMo thing, and I am happy to report that I am still here. Writing away.

Last night was a good night. I came to the page with great reluctance, confused and sleepy and distracted but once I got into the groove, I got into the groove. I even surprised myself. At the end of the night was at 26058, and I added 3000+ words. Are those words any good? I don't know. I will deal with that at the edit stage.

I found this cool writing tool called Scrivener. Actually, I read about it on one of these NaNo pep talk letters. At first, I was like why would I need a tool for writing a novel, like I couldn't get it. But then I actually read about the features and I got it.

What got me was the fact all my scattered word files  could be stored in one place. So I have been writing this novel separated into years instead of chapters, with the major characters telling each year from their view. I would put each year in their own file and then after I edited, would transfer it to the main document. Whenever I needed to look up something I had written before, I would have to open the respective document to get at it.

Meanwhile, I have been doing freewrites for several scenes that I felt could be expanded. A freewrite for me is a tear out scene that I write with the plan of putting that in the novel somewhere at a later time. Sometimes I do them so I can get a handle on the characters, like one time I just sat and did the background of the families of both major characters. I write these in a notebook. The other day, I was trying to write about the family of the female protagonist and I realized that I couldn't remember a thing, not even the names I had given her family members. Well, with this Scrivener program, I can create these documents and refer to them easily within the program, including my pictures (for which I had a pinterest board), I was sold! Plus, it has a word count write at the bottom of the screen so I do not have to stop and do a count which with my mind means that i might meander into something else entirely.

A picture is a thousand words. 

So far, I am loving the program and I do plan to buy it very soon.