(no subject)

[olivermoss]

My migraine is less every day, but my brain still cannot write. Well, I can but it's like... characters talking like they are trying to get a good grade in therapy.

So, I am going to post about my writing tools because I feel like doing something writing related. Basically, these are the things that would normally keep me on track.



I use Scriviner and I love it. I keep wanting to import even small projects there just for the notes and organization. Scriv pages that are part of the story, and some that aren't. Some pages aren't included when you export a story into another file type. (But me I just C&P chapters directly into AO3)

I have a Scriv template that I've set up for myself with a bunch of pages:

* The first page is for writing down title ideas, summary ideas, tags I want to include and anything I might want to have as notes for the story.

* Next I have a page called 'Emotional Impact'. What I call 'Emotional Impact' is what what older writing books call 'high concept'. It's what I want the reader to feel. When I start a new Scriv file, it looks like this:

What do I want the reader to feel?

Hole Hearted to Whole Hearted

Hole hearted –
Whole hearted –

The whole 'hole hearted to whole hearted' thing is from Romancing the Beat. Basically, it's there so I can describe the pain / dramatic need of the MC and also visualize what that being met would look like.

* Next I have a page called Beat Sheet, but I only use a beat sheet sometimes. (For those unfamiliar, it's a type of plot outline. In school I was taught to do plot outlines in a weirdly hierarchical way with roman numerals? Anyway, a beat sheet is just a simple non-hierarchical list of what happens in order)

* Next is Threads. Threads is there for longer stories, it's to keep track of things I need to make sure I pay off. Like if I write Steve and Eddie joking about spanking more than twice, I'll make a note there so I remember to either pay it off or delete it. I don't use this page much, it's mostly for 10K+ stories. I really like to make sure I pay off things I bring up.

* Finally, I have a sheet that is called Spaghetti. This is where I do random free-writing. If I have an idea for a bit of conversation or scene description that I haven't gotten to yet, I write it there. Where I get to the relevant part of the story, I then see if it still fits. I'll either delete it, re-write it, or C&P it into the chapter. It's how I can let myself get out all my ideas without making a mess. I have Spaghetti for the messy stuff, but still go through making my draft in order.

I also have a separate Scriv document called How To Write that I go through when stuck. I've got a page on how to write sex scenes, how to end stories, notes on urban fantasy and it's pitfalls, one is called Cargill Horror and it's just a C&P of his twitter thread on how to write horror, Genre Notes on cottagecore, pen testing notes, etc. I go through that document when I'm stuck. I really need to make another sheet of random writing advice that has helped me.

So, that's the process that I currently can't do! Normally reviewing all that helps, but right now brain is no. Maybe I'll work on a Random Writing Advice page.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

That sounds like a great way to organize things!

I usually have at least three documents for any ongoing project - one that's a basic outline (usually scene by scene, with any key notes), one for the story itself (and more often, one document for each chapter), and then a general "thought list" one, which is sort of a mix of everything else: my plans for the story, any random bits and scene fragments, any thoughts about the process, notes to myself about things I want to fix on a rewrite...
Scrivener sounds extremely helpful! I kept meaning to try it out this year, but haven't gotten to it yet. Maybe sometime before the end of the year! Or next!

But I'm sorry you've had a lingering migraine. :(

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it's good to have all those docs in one place. It's the split screen feature that I love the most. I was slow to try it just because I hate becoming reliant on any tool or program for some reason. But, I love it.

It's been a while since I had one this bad. I am in 'every night I go to sleep telling myself over and over that tomorrow the migraine will be less' mode. It is better every day but it's also like... ebbing very slowly.

[mistressofmuses]

Not wanting to be reliant on any particular tool or program seems like an eminently *reasonable* position, considering the fuckery that so many programs have been pulling. Photoshop and Word and all the others that have gone to subscription models, making you pay in perpetuity if you want access to your own files... I do very much appreciate that Scrivener is an old fashioned "buy it and have it" program.
So I'm also glad you love it! The way you've described your organization using it sounds excellent, and makes me think I'd also find it useful.

Ugh. I'm so sorry it's been the lingering migraine from hell. :(

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I am overly resistant sometimes to using tools. It's reasonable, but I don't know what is was that made me so dead set against tools. I have such stress about all my work becoming inaccessible.

It's nice to just have a program. Subs are such stress. It makes doing art / creative stuff stressful when money is tight because you have to justify continuing to pay. But I happily have Scriviner and Procreate and my old copy of Lightroom so I've been insulated for a while

[mistressofmuses]

Stress about losing things because something goes wrong with the tool you use for it is a crappy stress, but an unfortunately realistic thing to be concerned about. Proprietary formats can fuck you over! So can support for something you rely on being discontinued!
There was some crappy little default pre-installed art program that I had several computers ago, but it had some proprietary file format, and after an OS upgrade, the program was no longer supported, and nothing else opens the file type, so I just have these weird ghost files of art from 15 years ago.
It sucks, because tools are by nature designed to help, and I know a lot of them ARE useful and helpful and make life easier... but it's become extremely hard to trust the sources that provide those tools.

That's the biggest thing for me... I'm like, morally offended by the need to pay a constant, perpetual fee in order to access my own things. Paying on an ongoing basis for an actual service of some kind? Sure, fine. But if it's solely to have access to a program? That should be one and done, the price of the software. Paying in order to access *my own work*... rot in hell, lmao.
Too often I AM in a position where I can't justify one more monthly expense, and having my own creative work held hostage behind a paywall? Nope!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it creeps me out that if things get rough these tools will go away and I wont even be able to access the files! My own work just goes inaccessible.

I've kept myself insulated for a long time, but I've had to be very committed to my insulation. I don't mind paying for things or upgrades or certain types of subscriptions, but losing my own work creeps me out. There was definitely a period where I lost lots of files due to OS changes or new versions of programs and people just seemed to think that was normal.

[mistressofmuses]

Right! Super horrifying to think about losing access to *my own stuff* because of a format change or a company going under or changing their own policies. No!

Big same. I've kept myself deliberately isolated (as much as I can) from those issues as well, though often just by doing everything I can to keep old versions of programs running, copying them from computer to computer. While I have managed things like keeping an old copy of Word for about a decade, eventually you hit compatibility issues and it can get to the point where it doesn't keep doing what you need it to. (.doc getting replaced with .docx, and a lot of things no longer playing nice with regular old .doc.)

I find it just... baffling that people feel so blase about the idea of losing access to their files. The idea that "oh well, that's just how it is" absolutely creeps me out, and I find the fact that people are just okay with it to be even creepier!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I feel like .doc compatibility was an issue for me at a point.

I should really do another set of backups and also saving things in other filetypes.

People are just weird about companies 'needing' to do things to stay profitable and it's like... wtf.... no

[mistressofmuses]

I tried to limp along with .doc for years after it had basically gone extinct, ha. Though ultimately I had the stupidest workarounds that now just seem dumb as hell to me (copying and pasting the text into google docs, having to re-add in all of the formatting, and saving it as different formats from there, that sort of nonsense.)

Yeah. That's the one thing that's made me nervous about Libreoffice - the .odt filetype worries me, haha. Backups of backups of backups are always a good idea.

Right? There are some real bootlicking attitudes when it comes to companies doing some really garbage things in the name of profit. Yeah, companies will want to stay profitable, but people acting like that means everyone should just put up with anything and everything they choose to do and keep throwing money at them for services and products that get worse and worse is... just garbage.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I did the same with .doc even when no one could open my files. I want to say that I had an older system and didn't have whatever came with everyone else's newer computers?

People don't get the company's actual finances and how fine they'd be without pulling that. People are just weird about... stuff in general.

[mistressofmuses]

I kept copying my same copy of Word that I got in high school to I think two other later laptops. Then I had an old 2011 copy of Word (which was at least newer than the version from '05) that was on the laptop I inherited from my grandfather and I just kept using that laptop until I literally couldn't any longer, lol.

People are SO weird about so many things! It really is that fantasy of... idk, buying into this idea that getting screwed in the name of profit is good actually because they THINK that will somehow earn them the chance to be the screwer instead of the screwee at some point. Which is almost never how that works, and is also just plain weird when it comes to "yes, please make every product and service shittier and more expensive! I love capitalism!" When like... yeah, most companies could survive JUST FINE without that sort of garbage... they would just rather make more more more profit no matter how much worse it makes everything they offer.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I feel like there was a time when if you didn't get MS Office from school/work it was super expensive and there was no other way to get the filetype. It's like... I am not spend $500 to send you a file, you can convert it.

It's like they think your country's big corporations being powerful is better for their country / culture *cough*race*cough* is better for the economy than people having more right / money. I don't even know how to have a convo with those people

[mistressofmuses]

Yup! I was *shocked* when I found out how expensive a new copy off Office would be. I think I got my old copy super cheap because I got a discount bundling it with a laptop as a "back to school" thing. Prior to that, we'd had a copy on a shared family computer, and at the time it was easy to just copy the program files from computer to computer when we needed to. When I did actually look at buying a new version so that I wouldn't have so many compatibility issues years later, it was stunningly expensive. At the time it was a lot harder to get something to convert the files, and I often had to do weird multi-step things using a computer lab at school if a professor was too picky about the filetype. Now google docs will save in new filetypes pretty readily, but that wasn't as much of an option then, or else I hadn't figured it out. (To say nothing of whether you want to trust or rely on google docs. Evil empires and all.)

Right? People try to turn it into this weird blend of capitalism and nationalism? Like as long as it's a good (white) American company bending you over, then it must be a work of business genius. Elon fanboys may be the worst example, but it happens about everything. I'm with you: I don't even know how to START attempting a conversation with someone who thinks that.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, office became the default through school and business use, but everyone without free/discounted access had a problem!

It's fine for companies to be brutal, unethical and data harvesting as long as the monsters doing it are our monsters! And it's like, no, they are in no way 'our monsters'. That isn't how business works anymore. The super rich have a class allegiance that is way above anything else. Except for Japan, in most countries companies have no incentive to work in the national interest.

[mistressofmuses]

Buying your way in as the default program sure can help with that market share!

Fucking right? Like... the monsters do not care for you, and they will not hesitate to eat you just like everyone else. There's no incentive to work for national good, and there's definitely no incentive for them to work for the good of those on the bottom rung of the company, and extra zero negative incentive for them to work for the good of their customer base. Acting like you're being A Patriot for being excited to get screwed over is frankly weird.