Using a Planner for Writing?

 Last time I bought a planner was 2020 and we all know how that worked out! Yikes! But that was for my business, separate from writing. A business covid crushed. 

I was almost afraid to purchase a new planner, but it's always best to look forward, right? 

Here's to 2023! 

Sending positive wishes 

for a great year to the Universe. 

What to use a planner for in writing? 

   Starting in January, one of my resolutions was to get 2 to 3 more books published on Amazon. Writing everyday. 

   Hard part?  Getting the time alone to write - yes, I need to be alone. (There's a reason King wrote in the laundry room with a typewriter on his knees in those early years -Recommending Stephen King's On Writing if you want to learn more)

Is this planner to set a schedule? No. 

Keep notes about the story? No. 

This planner is maybe 5 x 3" and would not fit the notes. 

I'm using this planner to track writing/editing days. Once I finish writing for the day, I print it and edit those pages. This is for two reasons. Editing the pages a day or two after writing them, and before going back to story creation, keeps the details fresh in my mind. 

With the planner I can see where creativity flows and how to keep it going. Its a bird's eye view of the writing process. 

 I have 3 printed chapters sitting her now and I've got to get to the editing process. 

Time to get to work (No matter what the cat on my keyboard says) 

Scrivener - Is it worth it?

After my last writer's conference I really wanted to try Scrivener. A lot of the more experienced writers were raving about how easy it is to organize a story. All the writers who were doing series swore by it.

So I toddled on over to Scrivener's website and found a free 30 day trial. One great thing about the trial was it was 30 days of actually using the program and not 30 calendar days. If it was calendar days I probably would have waited for that magical month when I had the elusive "time" nailed down. That never happens in real life. But 30 random days definitely fit my schedule. I hit that download button.

There is a learning curve to Scrivener and I've been using it for about a month and still feel I have a lot to learn. I can write, set up my characters/place descriptions. Jump back and forth and it is so nice to have those notes at my fingertips.  I'm still not great at fixing paragraph formatting but I haven't put much time into learning much about that stuff. I'll get on that more when I'm in the editing process.

Confession: I didn't wait the 30 days. I purchased Scrivener after two weeks to the cost of $40.

There's actually no excuse not to learn the ins and outs of Scrivener. They have a lot of tutorials on the website to help you out and other writers are stepping up to put up blog posts on it. Writers sites talking about it here.
There are lots of informative You Tube videos that go over different aspects of what Scrivener can do and how to use it. This one is pretty good here. A lot of them cover different parts of the program so it's an easy study. 

Bottom line, the peeps at the writers conference were right. Scrivener Rocks!

Editing, Editing, #*&(*@$%*(! Editing...

Editing & stress...so happy together.
Re-editing with the help of my daughter who a ruthless, unforgiving editor. I call her the grammar Nazi, but she also pounds me on those little technicalities in the plot. A degree in psychology with a minor in literature, she should have gone into publishing. And she killing my story!

Well, not really.

She's catching things that make me go, "How did I not see that?" or "How stupid of me." Don't get me wrong, I do argue with her. Explaining my point or the character's pov. What I wanted to say was....blah, blah, blah. But then she reminds me my readers wouldn't know that, wouldn't get it.

So, I'm back to a editing a story I'm kind of sick of seeing. Now I'll be sitting out in my car on my lunch hour with my red pen. Reading something I've read a thousand times. I park in the back of the lot so I can read out loud without people thinking I'm crazy.

Anyone got any editing tips they'd like to share?