When you can’t write, diddle-Day 13
I found the ultimate distraction to fuel my procrastination: Jer’s Novel Writer for the Mac. Ooooh, I’m happy, happy. I spent part of last night copying and pasting every bit of Henry into a single document, then printed it out to figure out flow and relevance. Then I did the same thing with everything else. But I got so pissed off at Word because there’s no clean way to deal with notes and ideas without having to have a separate document.
Jer’s Novel Writer provides margin notes! And structure via outline, and sections, and chapters and whatever other restrictive elements you can think up! Oh my! Oh, and a database to keep track of all the fuzzy details that go in one ear and out the other and then make you have to read back through 100 pages of cack to find that one little thing about the school bus driver who has a problem with flatulence on Monday mornings that you have to refer to on page 101 or the whole damned story falls apart.
So I downloaded the freeware (for now while it’s still in beta) and now I’m trying to organize the behemoth file. I can see that this software will be fantastic to work in when I start from scratch, and that once I get it all organized, moving forward is going to be like coasting. I’ll get to just focus on spewing, get my notes out of the body of the text in ALLCAPS, amen, and have all of my distracting thoughts easily accessible in one neat document. Sigh.
Sometimes it’s good to procrastinate.
ETA: The fatal flaw in my plan is the fact that I do 80% of my writing on a ThinkPad Laptop. Boo hiss. I should have learned my lesson about listening to Chris and what he thinks I should do when I bought the grey Ecco shoes with red stripes instead of the ones I wanted (red on red). He convinced me (or I pretended to be convinced) that I should get a tower and a cinema display. I really wanted the laptop. We’re still paying off the system three years later.
"In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy."
~Henry David Thoreau
November 13th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
nice to see things in progress…ive been piecing together your teases scattered about in here and I love it….im hoping…and yup said it before…to put togather some pics of my new work for you…miss ya tons and love you soooooooo much…..so so much….oh and nice props on the fellow potter …love the work…peace and much love hun…your lil bro D.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:34 am
I’ve been using Jer’s Novel Writer for NaNoWriMo, and it’s fab. I think my number-one distraction-killing feature has to be the full-screen mode, though. Just hit F8 and all my distracting pretty icons are invisible. Marvelous!
November 14th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Ooo! More Mac toys.
Oddly enough, I too have a pair of grey Ecco sneakers with red stripes. (Are yours a lightweight take on bowling shoes?)I bought mine three years ago and have only worn them a few times.
November 14th, 2006 at 8:25 am
that sounds like the ones. I loved the red on red so much, suede with red leather stripes. But Chris didn’t like them…and I bought the other ones to please him (I realized later, of course) and only wore them a few times because they go with nothing I own. Nothing except jeans, but then my shirts always clash.
When will I learn?
November 14th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Hey honey! do send some photos, I’ll add them to the art page! I have one of your bowls at work for when I want to warm up soup in the microwave. Thanks for the sweet words. I miss you too, heard you were quite illin’ over the weekend. Wish I was there to help out.
November 14th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Ooh, full screen mode. must try it. Must also get myself a Mac laptop so I can actually use it.
November 14th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Oooh is this a Mac toy? I dare not stop writing long enough to find out right now. Blog hopping is as much distraction as I think I can afford. Actually, it’s twice as much distraction as I can afford, but very good for the mental health. Mmm.