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Posted on 8 March 2016
In Novel writing, Scrivener, Training

In the post before last, the (mysterious to some of you) tag <$p> appeared. I go back a long way with various computer codes, so anything within the triangular brackets < > is 'normal' to me. But, in answer to those of you who were puzzled and wrote asking for an explanation, here's the lowdown on tags. What is a tag? A tag is a string of characters which starts with < and ends...

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Posted on 17 February 2016
In Novel writing, RedPen Editing, Scrivener, Training

I can't remember the last time I edited a book written by someone else. Mostly, I write or mentor writers so that they can edit their own masterpieces. However, I have a friend - let's call him the Admiral - and, the other day, he twisted my arm and persuaded me to help him to complete his memoir; it's the only thing left on his bucket list. I received an electronic copy of the manuscript, saved in Pages, and...

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Posted on 7 February 2016
In Novel writing, RedPen Editing, Scrivener, Training

I love learning. I'm addicted to courses and I've just recently signed up for a 'Revise with Confidence' course with Joan Dempsey. I'm enjoying every minute. In my Red Pen Editing cycle, there's a place for drilling down to word level - it's in step 9. But with Joan's method - she recommends a process called translation - and she challenges me to go deeper still. Marvellous! The task is to select one...

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Posted on 15 December 2015
In NANO, Novel writing, RedPen Editing, Scrivener, Training

There were several occasions during the first 40K of NANO when I invited my main character to 'walk this way'. Instead of populating the outline I had so carefully prepared ahead of time, she was determined to tread her own path. Was I relieved when the name of Ballycombe-by-the-Sea at last crossed her lips? Keeping track of the revised storyline might have been a nightmare in Word - been there before, got the...

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Posted on 1 December 2015
In NANO, Novel writing, Scrivener, Training

The morning after the night before! Congratulations to everyone who validated their NANO 2015 novel before the deadline at midnight last night. Congratulations to everyone who took part. Even if you didn't write 50,000 words, you wrote words - and that means you have the beginnings of a first draft. Today, I'm hosting three TGIO (Thank God It's Over) webinars: 2pm, 6pm and 9.30pm. On the agenda: Celebration time What to...

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Posted on 26 November 2015
In NANO, Novel writing

As I typed the final few words, closing in on my 50K target, a sadness came across me. NANO2015 would soon be over; but then ...

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Posted on 18 November 2015
In NANO, Novel writing, Scrivener, Training

Faced with the prospect of editing five NANO novel drafts, all written in Word, all in various states of chaos, I found myself pushed towards adopting a better, more organised approach this year, using Scrivener. This time, the planner in me was determined to have an outline in place before I started. And she did. But the pantser in me, who lets my characters have free rein, has been having fun,...

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Posted on 14 November 2015
In NANO, Training

Where does the time go? Two weeks have flown by and tomorrow is the halfway mark for NaNoWriMo: 25K words! If you are struggling, I recommend you visit the NANO site and watch a pep talk. I particularly liked Neil Gaiman's which dates back to 2007, gave me inspiration then and still does the job now. Plus, you could attend one of my free MIDWAY webinars tomorrow, Sunday 15 November. There are three-time...

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Posted on 9 November 2015
In NANO

We had guests this weekend so we've been doing the touristy bit: taking in local sights despite the dreadful weather, and generally chilling out. No time to write! Our friends left late this afternoon and I was faced with a word count of 8801 - how I left my Safari Supper novel on Day 5 - marginally ahead of schedule then, but woefully behind for Day 8. So I had an AWESOME time -...

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