Wednesday, April 1, 2009

by the seat of my pants


I want to outline in the worse way. I love to outline. Outlines look so cool, and with a word processors, it’s so easy. Best of all, it’s one of the best ways to procrastinate that I know, especially if you are me, because I know I’ll never finish one.

I’ve tried writing software. New Novelist, It’s a good program. I got it off EBay. I used it for about a week, then forgot about it.

The Cadillac of writing software; in my humble opinion, is
yWriter4. It’s got some neat bells and whistles. A story board, an outline feature, a rating chart, a daily word count target dowidget, individual chapter features, a word usage counter, a view point tracker, and more. Best of all, it is absolutely free. Check it out at the above link, the website is quite interesting as well.

Here’s what I always fall back on. It's rustic and home spun. Good old Microsoft Excel worksheet. I got the idea from Randy Ingermanson. If you haven’t read about his Snowflake Method, here’s the website, Snowflake Method. Even so, it’s still a post-outline, but with my lack of consistency, or until I get my undiagnosed ADD under control, that's long for early onset dementia, it’s the best I’m going to be able to do. It’s called seat of the pants writing.

4 comments:

  1. I know of yWriter. I use a program similar but with more nifty items for writers on my Mac - Scrivner Literature or Latte. I LOVE all of the tools it has to help break down scenes, chapters, notes, etc. It's wonderful. I did pay $40 for it, but I get free upgrades for the rest of my life, so I'm happy with that.

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  2. Elizabeth, your blog is terrific. I love the picture of you and your mother together. Someday you will be just a pretty as she is. I want to look further at the programs you mention. Whatever will help. I use a filing system within Word right now. It could get tricky if it gets any more complicated though. Thanks.

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  3. Hi Elizabeth,

    I just sent you another email. You won a book on my blog but I need to hear from you by tomrrow or I will have to pick a runner-up.

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