Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Hi Ho, Hi Ho.... Ho Hum.........



I'm back at work today and just as I suspected, the work was lying exactly where I left it! However, I am not very motivated to deal with it. 

I do not feel .... I don't know what I feel. I'm tired and I want to go back to bed but I slept fine. I got up when the clock went of. I don't hurt especially bad anywhere, just the usual aches that virtually never stop. I'm just tired and that's probably a bad sign. If you get enough sleep you shouldn't be tired. Right?

For breakfast, I ate a bowl of grits. They were hot, soft, and buttery and a lot easier on my stomach than anything else I could think of to eat. Good grits are nearly the consistency mashed potatoes without lumps. Grits should never, ever have lumps, feel sandy, or be watery. They should not be the consistency of Play Doh(c) either. I can't explain it. I just know how to make them.

For lunch, I'm thinking a salad. I don't know if that is what Carolyn wants but if not, I'll go alone. I am not very good company either anyway. 

Tonight I think Dave has Sarah for a while. Not sure. She's been doing really good with school again and she is in after school care for a couple of hours because her mother went to work.

I am going to try and work on the novel again. I've been working in fits and starts. Mostly arranging things to get a logical sequence of events. I kind of know what that is. I've had to stop reading the stuff too much and just write a synopsis onto the index cards on the cork board so I can sort it by summary.


Graphic Courtesy Google - I'll put one of mine up once I make it.
What I'm doing looks a bit like the graphic to the left. It is the cork board view. One problem I had was that I had not written synopsis notes on the cork board index cards for each scene. I had done it for some but not most.  Incidentally, you create the note cards in that yellow space on the top left of the graphic. It is called Synopsis. Duh. I discovered that not writing as synopsis is actually a handicap. You don't have to do it. It just makes things easier if you do.

How does it make it easier? Well, because my story is a jumbled mess of scenes it makes it hard to know what goes where. I can move sections around easily but I needed an overview. 

There is an outline feature but I was not getting anything helpful when I pulled it up and had no idea how to get it to work. The graphic below is what that looks like when it is created correctly. When I tried to view my outline of the novel to see the sequence of events, the center column, the synopsis section, of that colored area was fairly blank. 


I found that when I did a summary of each scene in the synopsis section, it showed up in two places: on the index card on the cork board AND this synopsis section filled in! This has helped enormously.

Once that is done, I hope I will be able to see where things don't fit and move them. Moving them is as easy as drag and drop. Then, I can rewrite things. 

Now, I've spent a lot of time on this and if you don't use Scrivener, none of that will make sense and today... I just don't have any interest in explaining it. Suffice it to say that the writing program I am using is awesome with lots of bells and whistles. 





5 comments:

  1. lo... obviously, you're thinking more about your writing, than work, today! As it happens, while your post may not make much sense to those not familiar with Scrivener.. for those who ARE familiar with Scrivener, it reminds us that we're probably not fully utilizing this software. Thanks for the reminder, I needed that.

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  2. LOL, so, Laurie, does this mean that the Asylum needs another Scrivener review meeting?

    Actually, this outline view is awesome once you do it right.

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  3. Not a writer and not familiar with Scrivener, but I did offer a prayer for you and send love & hugs.

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  4. I'm not a writer and I'm not familiar with this software but for some reason it made me think about my work and reading this makes me even more thankful I've just retired. this reminded me exactly how it feels to go back to work after a period away for what ever reason, to find a pile of work sitting exactly where I left it. In fact in my case the pile of work on the desk grew every time I turned my back. I guess you at least have the satisfaction of knowing its your own work you're going back to and eventually you will have created something of your own to be proud of.............that must be a lovely feeling.

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    1. I wish it were true. Alas, my work load grows daily and I'm never ahead or even caught up. With the upcoming layoff, if I remain, my load will increase by 1/4. That's not a good feeling at all.

      I'd love to retire and do all the things I love.

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