:: Katie's Musings ::

:: Friday, January 30, 2004 ::

Bits and pieces:

1. I'm really liking the WriteWay program. I have the Pro version, which has full capabilities. There are a lot of neat features that you can use depending on the way you approach writing a novel. I'm kind of a pantser in that I have a general idea as to what's going to happen in the book, I do know how it ends, but I don't really have it planned down to the tiniest detail. I decided to use the character profiles that are available as a prod to my memory, but I haven't really refered to them since I started writing. This isn't really a program for deep structuring of the story like Drammatica, but I think it would definitely be useful for people who are more thorough in their story planning than I am. WriteWay also has a built in word processing feature which took some getting used to, but I'm liking it. I'm currently sans printer thanks to mine blowing up right around this time of year last year. I'm hoping to have funds for my dream one in a few months, but until then, I'm appreciating the fact that you can export your work as an .rtf file so that I can save it to a disk or whatever and print from somewhere else. The program does have a learning curve, and there are a few things that I hope will be added as the program grows, but I like that with so much planning tools available, I really focus on my story.

2. I'm already ahead for my quota for the month. Yeah! Now to keep the momentum going. Luckily, I'm very pavlovian when it comes to stimuli. Stick in a certain movie, and I'll probably fall asleep at your feet. Stick in a certain CD and I fall right into writing mode. It got bad though when I found out this morning that my batteries were dead and I had to scavenge all of our remote controls for a pair that worked. I stocked up on my way home from work.

3. For any super-techies out there, it looks like I now have a feed for this blog. Check it out if you're inclined and let me know what you think.
:: Katie 12:01 AM [+] ::
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Got humor?

I thought I'd point this out because it's a free writing competition, humor is always needed, and my brother will be attending this year's Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. There are two divisions with two winners apiece, local and national. So check it out if you write humor!

Washington-Centerville Public Library - Adults
:: Katie 11:01 PM [+] ::
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Well, I've been playing around with the WriteWayPro, and I'm liking it. It's got this really neat tracking feature that helps you to plan how much you need to write based on how long you estimate your book to be and the deadline to finish it. Since I don't have an editor breathing down my neck for the book, I've given myself an "artificial" deadline of September 1st to finish the new ms. This should give me enough time to do revisions and get it ready for RWA's Golden Heart contest. Since I'm aiming for a 400 page novel with this one, and since Sept. 1st is just over 200 days away, I have to average just under 2 pages per day. When you break it down like that it seems so manageable. And it can be, you just have to stay dedicated to producing that much over the long haul.
:: Katie 11:42 PM [+] ::
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