And so begins the end…
The photo above is one my five cats – Lilly. Lilly is actually my wife’s cat – most of them are my wife’s cats actually. One likes me, some tolerate me because I have more lap space. But in lieu of any other photo, I generally default to a photo of a cat – because why wouldn’t you?
I think I’ve been stalling on really getting into writing book 6 of the 30 Stones Saga – the final chapter of this series. I think that perhaps I don’t want it to end. But it has to, and so I’ve finally put aside the computer games that have held me willing hostage for the last few weeks and fired up…Scrivener?
For the first five books I’ve used good old reliable Microsoft Word. Then I realized, because I generally don’t pay attention to things like this, that Microsoft was charging me every month for the privilege of using something I always thought was free – because it always used to be free. So I chucked that in and started searching for a new tool to write and came across this thing called Scrivener. The initial beauty of this product is that you pay once and own it forever. But there are a lot of layers to peel back on this tool.
So, if you use something like Adobe’s Photoshop, you know that it does approximately six million things. And unless you are a high-end graphic artist, you probably know how to competently use, maybe a dozen of those things. I think Scrivener is something like that – it has a lot of gear built into it that you can use if you want to. It’s got options for screenwriters for instance.
While it takes a little time to get used to the interface, Scrivener beats Word hands down for a couple of glaring reasons.
First, note cards. Scrivener has a split screen function where you can make note cards (even going so far as to give them a digital cork-board backing) that you can fill out your notes and look at as you’re writing. This is a great feature and it brings up …
Second, no more scrolling. I cannot tell you how much scrolling up and down a several hundred page document I did with Word. It was numbing and it was not a constructive use of time. Scrivener has another small screen option so you can save each chapter independently and move between them with a single click.
Now, I’m just getting started with this project, but Scrivener (and no, I’m not getting paid for any of this – I wish!) has functions that let you paste items for research and recall – like spelling things like Sundrughan, and Sapreaon, and a bunch of other names I’ve made up over the last few years. In hind-sight, I wish I would have found this product when I was writing book one — I wouldn’t have so many random scraps of paper with notes littering up my space.
Alas, I did not but better late than never. Book 6, as yet untitled, is underway and while I would love to say it will be ready by Christmas, I don’t know. But it’s in motion and that’s the important part. After this is done, I’m going to take a break from Eigrae and tackle a shorter trilogy with an entirely different feel. But then, when that’s done, I think we’ll see Eigrae again, but it won’t be quite the same as what you’ve come to know over the last five books…but I don’t want to give too much away yet.
As always, thanks so much for hanging out with me here. And if you’d like a little fiction in your life, please consider joining my Patreon to get a brand new story each month for only a buck. If you need something to listen to, please take listen to my new podcast, Lunatics & Monsters. Episode 3 of the show will drop July 20.
And if you’ve read one or more of the 30 Stones Saga books, help a brother out and leave a review at Amazon and/or Goodreads and/or Bookbub. Indie authors need reviews on all the books they write – not just the first in the series. When you choose a book, you probably look at the reviews, so if you loved the series and want to point people toward it; or if you really hated the series and want to warn people away from it, leave a review. Either way, I’ll appreciate it.
Stay well, stay safe – In fact, just stay home and read a book.
Cheers!
