An Old Peg In A New Hole

Posted on by

John Ramsey Miller

I’m am not old. I hear that all the time, but I am sixty-two and often I feel old. I see myself working at a slower pace than I used to, and not just with the writing, but with most things. I have never been an organized person, and once in a while I jump into the chaos of my desk, my closet, my tool shed and put things on hangars, in ordered stacks and in proper cubbies. I admire the organized Miller world, and for a few days I keep the organization organized. After a few bits of time have passed I have scattered my tools all over the property, my desk is buried, and my closet looks like I’ve taken it back to college with me. It’s just me.

Here’s the thing. I need to be organized to write. We all do. I remember the stories of Kerouac’s editor getting his handwritten-partially typed manuscripts as loose sheets and legal tablets all shoved into a grocery bag or two and I smile. None of us believe that could be true, even though I have presented my financial dealings to my accountant that way.

I have accepted some of the changes in our fluid (think mountain stream rapids) world better than others. I still do not understand how Tweeting can be any more effective than going out into the back yard and barking what I’m doing at trees. I type something and it does what? I have a Tweet account and a few followers, but I have nothing going on in my life that seems worth telling people. I’m delighted to have followers even though I have no expectation of holding their interest.

Recently I looked at my writing /dining table made from cherry and walnut harvested from our Mississippi property, milled, planed, and built by my little brother). You might remember how I described it back when I started my rewrite- with the legal tablets, two dozen sharpened pencils, index cards, long roll of paper for time-lining, pens, highlighters, a laser printer, my lucky charm (A buckeye my father gave me when I was about to start my first high-school newspaper column), a huge McCarty bowl for balls of rejected notes, and all ordered in the manner of an actual anal compulsive. Looking back on my life is more like standing in the stern of a speedboat admiring the towering rooster tail. Now weeks later, the order is a dim memory and I found myself peering into something akin to a coal mine.

I decided last week that what I needed was a computer program that would allow me to have everything organized and at the touch of (both) my trigger-fingertips. I type with two fingers, while staring at the keyboard. I didn’t fail typing class in high school, I was asked by the instructor to find another sort of machine to abuse. So I asked Joe Moore if such a program existed that would think the way I think, only organize things. I wanted it to accept my outline, transfer that outline to index cards that I could line up and sort as I wished, keep my notes, order my research, show me what I’ve written, thrown out… basically become my anal writing partner.

Joe gave me two. Scrivener and another I can’t recall. I looked at Scrivener and the other (Tweedle-dum or Flip-sticks or something) and ended downloading Scrivener, a very British program. The tutorial has “organization” spelled “organisation” and the videos are all by a gentleman who sounds like an Attenborough. According to the tutorial it not only does what I hoped it would, but will do it the way I think it should do. It has templates for non-fiction, novels, short stories, radio, film, and TVscripts, and poetry. A template for poetry? What would e e cummings or Sandburg have made of that? It is all that I (be I novelist or poet or BBC presenter) could have wished for. Did I mention it will format eBooks in all known formats and allow you to add cover art?

Now all I have to do is figure out how to use it. My wife understands it, which means I may never do.

So this oldling is still working on Word with this rewrite, but I am going to write my next book using this amazing program (and it’s only $45.00 US which is cheaper than hiring an anal compulsive assistant for just part of one day). I am not recommending it yet. The thing is, if I can figure it out, I’ll either tweet about it, or maybe I’ll sing its praises to the trees in my back yard.

18 thoughts on “An Old Peg In A New Hole”

  2. Two thumbs up on Scrivener, John. BTW, I am amazed at how alike we are with respect to organization, right down to the “clean it up, mess it up” cycle we seem to go through every few months.

  4. John,
    I’m still using a trial of Scrivener. It seems to me that its value comes, for me, in the organization of things. And I love the name generator.

    I tend to get a little lost with it and revert to Word as well.

    I can see its value in theory but the application of the thing seems to get lost in translation somewhere and I feel like I’m spending too much time away from writing, fiddling with learning the thing, and that makes me want to go outside and bark at my trees.

  5. “I still do not understand how Tweeting can be any more effective than going out into the back yard and barking what I’m doing at trees.”

    ROTFL! This is my favorite quote of 2012 so far. I do not have nor do I understand Twitter either.

    But then I’m also one who cannot imagine who on earth people need to talk to so badly that they have a cell phone attached to their ear at all times either.

  6. Alan,

    Thanks for that book link to Amazon. Like Paula, I downloaded a trial of Scrivener but I ended up going back to Word because I find using Scrivener to be bewildering. Maybe this book will shed some light on it for me.

    Because, if it is as good as folks say, it will help me a lot, especially since my mind is utter chaos during the writing of a first draft, and it would be wonderful to have a program that would help me keep my chaotic thoughts and story scribblings in check.

    Hopefully the book recommended here will help.

  7. I loved hearing about your mess cycle. Sooooo me too. I’m making diamonds with some of my piles. I’m organized online though. Crazy.

    Scrivener gives me the willies just looking at it. Being a pantser who can’t force herself to even do a storyboard or outline, I can’t see how frustrating myself with new software would help. But lots of folks swear by it. Good luck & tell us how it worked for you. You are the perfect experiment.

    Btw, I told my trees about your post. So far, nothing.

  8. Jordan, Scrivener is tailor made for “pantsers.” If you only did one thing with it — writing scenes as you go — it would make the process of re-writing much easier. You can easily create a synopsis/outline of what you HAVE written (not what you’re GOING to write) and print that out whenever you like, to get an “overview” of the book–or even get a “dreaded” synopsis to a nervous agent or editor.

    For new users, don’t try to master all the “bells and whistles” at the start. You can figure out a few things and the program will be of tremendous value to you.

    If you want to see your MS all at once (as you would in Word) you can switch to full screen. One of my favorite things to do is add a background picture to the full screen mode. What happens is my MS comes up centered in the screen, and I can choose a background photo to fill the rest of the screen. I took a photo of the interior of my favorite deli in LA, so now I can feel like I’m writing at a table there. It is way cool.

  11. John, it looks like the Windows version of Scrivener is now out of its test phase so let’s hope most of the bugs have been worked out. My (limited) experience with the “beta” (pre-final-release) version worked fine. It’s best, though, to start using Scrivener with a new piece, though, rather than trying to convert a WIP, which I found awkward and almost painful.

    One thing the company that created Scrivener has done VERY well is their set of tutorial videos. Very clear, step-by-step, and with lots of “You can do THAT? Cool!” moments.

    And for $45 (Mac) or $40 (Windows), it’s hard to go wrong, especially compared, say, to Word (or, to be fair, WordPerfect or OpenOffice Writer), with its gazillion bells and whistles most writers will never need or use.

  12. I will give Scrivener a look-see. Perhaps even trying to learn it will help me jumpstart the process. I had to learn Photoshop by brute force and it helped me a lot with my photography and graphic design.

    Sitting here in my office/quarters still surrounded by the chaos of the Christmas rush for my online mail-order biz makes me laugh about your organizing posts. I have only a teeny bit of living space, so the showdown is coming.

    I am still confounded by Twitter. I liken it to a convention where the din is deafening. If I’m lucky, I tag up with a like-minded flash mob and we roam around for a while. Then I go to the ladies’ room, come back and they’re gone.

    However, I will say, the traffic for my humor meme blog whyifearclowns.net is up about 25% since I began tweeting a clown-a-day. Not spam, just one, maybe two tweets a day to a fun entry. The daily multi-spammers get the brunt of my absolute indifference.

    Terri

    Now, off to

  13. I just downloaded the latest Scrivener for Windows. Twitter is getting scary–I found out this morning that my account is “sending” messages in Spanish (without my input). I don’t even speak Spanish! Plus every day I “follow” new people I never chose. Must have gotten hacked somehow.

  14. Kathryn – at least change your password. So sorry!

    I downloaded Scrivener and right this moment my reaction is WTF?

    The tutorial is fair-the-well useless. I have sampled the book recommended in the first comment. Right now it is a we’ll see.

    Terri

  15. Coming in late here, but I struggle with organization issues too. In fact, my word (instead of resolutions)for 2012 is ORGANIZE. I also bought Scrivener, the Windows version, but felt much like Jordon. In all fairness though I haven’t spent much time with it yet. I’m going to wait till I’m done with my next book because I don’t have that long to finish it and I’m afraid I’ll get too far behind trying to find my way through Scrivener. But I’m still hoping it might work for me. Hope it works for you, John.

  17. I looked at scrivener. It seems pretty good but they have no Linux version. It looks interesting though. There’s a similar programme for win/Mac/Linux called Celtx. I haven’t tried the novel writing tools, but the script tool for plays works pretty well. And its free (although donations are gladly accepted).

    Otherwise Libreoffice (ubuntu’s openoffice varient) will suffice.

    for an IT guy, I’m not always too daring … or willing to learn something new.

  18. John,

    Scrivener started as a Mac only, but went through Windows beta and is now in 1.x

    I use the windows version, and wrote my new novella almost entirely on the beta (I know risky), but I’ve only ever had one crash, and fortunately lost nothing, as the backup system is so efficient.

    There are some differences between the Mac and Windows, but they are few.

    David Hewson also has a few videos on his site (http://www.davidhewson.com/blog) search the scrivener tag, which are worth a look.

Comments are closed.