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Archive for November, 2009

Seasonal Writing Disorder

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Summer is a really hard time for me to write. I’m not sure why. The days are longer which means I don’t get tired as early and that should equal more writing time, right? Only in summer, I want to be outside. Maybe that’s a Minnesota thing because our summers are so short and our cold weather goes on forever. But it’s more than just a desire to be outdoors, my brain also seems to move more slowly in the heat.

I find this strange in these days of central air conditioning. And it’s especially strange this summer since Minneapolis had a very mild, low-humidity season this year. Highly unusual and very comfortable, but my productivity remained at its usual summer speed–slow.

Fall, though, is another story. I’m productive in fall and get more done faster. Maybe it was bred into human genetics back when we were living in caves. We had to be productive in fall to survive winters where fields were barren and animals scarce. Or maybe it’s a school-year thing. That was trained into us as children. Summer was for vacation and fun and fall was when we buckled down and got to work again.

What hits me hardest, though, is the time changes. I hate switching back and forth between standard time and daylight savings. Let’s pick one option and stay on it year-round. I don’t even care which one, just stop bouncing me between them. Right now, I’m struggling with the change back to standard time. I get sleepy at 7pm and have trouble keeping my eyes open. It’s a good thing fall productivity is with me at this point, because if it wasn’t, I’d be sleeping and not writing.

Springing into DST, though, is worse. Much, much, much worse. I am literally a zombie for 2-3 weeks afterward. I hate it passionately, although I do love having daylight later at night. Writing until zombie-state passes is next to non-existent because my brain just doesn’t work.

So writing-wise we are in my best time of year, but personally, I’m not a fan of fall because autumn means winter is coming and I hate snow and cold. I hate snow and cold at least as much as I hate switching to DST. Winter, however, is a fairly productive time of year because there is nothing else to do except write, sleep, and try to stay warm. There is no good reason to ever go outside in Minnesota from Thanksgiving until Spring.

Thanks to Mike (@storylet on Twitter) for the topic.

Tags: writing
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Review: Liquid Story Binder

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Disclosure: I received a copy of Liquid Story Binder free from Giveaway of the Day about a year ago (maybe longer) and this is the version of the program I took out for a test drive. Last night, I went to the website and bought a license for this software because I wanted to be able to upgrade to the current version.

I’ve had a story in my head since the early 1990s. (Actually, it’s a trilogy idea, but one story is more vibrant for me than the others.) In the last five or six years, I’ve played with it off and on, trying to put together a proposal for my agent. It’s mostly been lingering in the recesses of my brain the past few years, but a couple of weeks ago, the characters started talking again. Loudly. And with their resurgence came a plotting epiphany. This flash struck me as cool beyond belief…and it scared the hell out of me because it will be very complicated to write. Apparently, I’m a masochist because I decided to give it a try anyway.

I immediately made a list of things I’d need to do in the books and terrified myself even more. I also had a realization: If I really planned to tackle this idea, I was going to need some kind of writer’s organizational software to help me because there was no way my current method was going to work. Last Friday, I went in search of a program that could do what I needed.

Every program I tried was either free, had a free demo, or something I already had on my laptop, including one I had bought earlier based on other writers’ recommendations. Some of them I tried for a matter of minutes before ruling them out, but I had very specific requirements.

My must-haves included: The ability to make notes and find them easily. The ability to create a timeline. The ability to use images within the program.

Most of the software I tried lost out when it came to images. I still gave them a whirl because if I absolutely had to, I could live without immediate access to my pictures, but none of them impressed me with their other attributes. After hours of downloading and testing, there was one clear winner for me. Liquid Story Binder. (I’ll call it LSB from here on out.)

I’ve had LSB on my laptop for at least a year, easily. I’d opened it a few times, clicked a few things, and closed it again because it was intimidating. I’m very good with computers and software, at least for someone who isn’t in the IT field. I subscribe to the motto: If all else fails read the instructions and I almost never do because I’m able to figure software out by playing around with it. That wasn’t the case with LSB. This program has a very steep learning curve, and after working with it for hours over several days (including much of the day on Saturday), I still only know a fraction of what it’s capable of doing. A series of video tutorials would really help, but a search of You Tube and a Google video search turned up nothing.

What does LSB offer? Among other things it lets the user create timelines, story boards, and I can upload images and create galleries from those images. This totally rocks for things like my heroine’s home because I can open the gallery and all the pictures are lined up in rows. Need a closer look? Click on the image and it comes forward full size. It allows the user to upload a song or a playlist, a cool extra since all of my books get theme songs and I know a lot of authors create playlists to listen to as they write.

It’s a word processing program (although I haven’t tested this feature yet and don’t know if I want to stop using my copy of WordPerfect), it allows notes and brainstorming. It has character dossiers with basic information, but it also gives the writer the ability to add data fields to the dossier. (If I wanted, I could add every question from my character sketch.) My favorite part of this feature, though, is that I can add an image and have my character’s picture right along side their description.

There’s more it can do, too, although I haven’t explored these features yet. Right now, I’m trying to learn the ones I really need. Probably the most awesome thing about LSB, though, is the flexibility. I can’t imagine any writer who can’t make LSB work with the way they write–if they can get past the learning curve. (Did I mention it’s steep?) I found a tutorial online that explains how to use the program if you’re 1) a linear plotter, 2) a nonlinear plotter, 3) a linear pantser, 4) a nonlinear pantser. That’s pretty much everyone, right?

Anyway, after working with version 2.9 (the version I got free from Giveaway of the Day), I decided I wanted the latest build (they’re up to 4.something) and I wanted to be able to move it to a new laptop since I’m only months away from replacing my current one. The Giveaway version wouldn’t let me do either thing, so I bought my own license last night. (Liquid Story Binder is currently 50% off.)

Pros: Very customizable to any writer’s style
Great features and lots of them
Can use only the features you want and ignore the rest

Cons: Steep learning curve
Not intuitive
Daunting at the start

I’ve tried a lot of writing software over the last five years or so because my organizational system isn’t the best. I have notes in at least 4 places on my computer and another 2 or 3 places for my hardcopy notes. I frequently can’t find what I need despite my best efforts and get frustrated. I want one place where I can put everything and LSB is going to let me do that.

LSB is not perfect and I can imagine a lot of writers giving up before learning how to use it. I printed out the PDF instruction book and had the tutorial open in Firefox and I still messed up twice as I tried to setup my first book. I deleted and started over both times. I think this program is worth the effort it takes, and once I’m familiar with it, I think I might be in my own personal organizational nirvana. I’m already in semi-nirvana.

There’s a 30 day free trial period and the program is on sale right now for NaNoWriMo. The LSB website. You can find the official LSB tutorials here, and here are some unofficial tutorials written by other authors here, here, here, and here.

Bottom line: Two thumbs up for Liquid Story Binder. Highly recommended.

Tags: reviews, software, writing
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Phone-phobic

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

I am totally phone-phobic. I hate it and do everything I can to avoid using it. This is one of the reasons it amazes me that people spend like every minute in their cars on their cell phones. Hello? This is the place you can go to get away from the damn phone. (I do own a cell phone, but it’s never turned on and I never think to check for messages. Once, I found a voice mail from a friend from months earlier on it. Talk about embarrassing.)

Tracing back my dislike of the phone gets murky. I know I hated it in high school because I had a job after school where I spent four hours a day on the phone, placing calls to stores. There’s a good chance, though, that I hated the phone before that because I have a vague memory of not calling my friends in junior high and not exactly being thrilled when they called either. In fact, I have pretty clear memories of giving short answers in the hope the other person would end the call faster.

Imagine that–a teenage girl who didn’t like spending hours on the phone. My parents didn’t know how good they had it.

This phone aversion has continued. For instance, right now, I have a iPod speaker dock thing that isn’t working. I ordered it from Woot, and only read their return policy after the fact. It’s basically deal with the manufacturer and only if that fails will we allow you to return the item at your cost. Um, nice. This is going to make me think twice before buying from them in the future, but it leaves me with a problem–now I have to contact the manufacturer.

I tried their website first. No help there on making the speaker dock work. They offered an email for help option and I jumped on that one. The response came quickly enough, offered a few suggestions, and then said if nothing here helped, that I should call customer service. I have a reference number.

Call! Gah!

If I wanted to make a phone call, I would have done that to begin with. I don’t. So now I’ve spent about a week trying to psyche myself up. Yes, it takes me time to build up enough courage to pick up the phone. Sometimes too long and I’ve been known to let things slide indefinitely because of my phone-phobia. Of course, I have a tendency to let anything I don’t want to deal with slide.

While I work to reach a point where I can call customer service, I have a messy kitchen, the box for the iPod dock/speakers is on top of my island. The directions are open on my dining room table. The dock itself and a couple of spare iPod trays are on my china hutch. I want that stuff gone and I can’t make it go away until I use the phone! Makes me wonder what will win out–my dislike of clutter or my dislike of the phone.

Stay tuned.

Tags: life
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