I’m starting to feel quite pleased with myself and the progress I’m making in Scrivener. having to reinstall it so many times (not Scrivener’s fault this time) is forcing me to learn to do the things I like much quicker.
If I have to do one more reinstall, for whatever reason, I swear I’ll be able to tweak it to suit me in my sleep. I’m not sure I’ll be teaching any masterclasses any time soon, but I really am getting a lot more betterer at it.
I had a good, productive morning yesterday. Not only did I reinstall a few more programs, I also got the printer working, I wrote a blog post, and I caught up on two of the 14 Days … exercises.
Fixing the printer meant I could print off the new bits of The Fool to take with me to the writers’ group. Had I really struggled, I would have been able to save the Word file to memory stick and print it off at the library.
Before I went out, I fired off an email to the Australia client, and I received a reply from the other potential client who I wrote to last Friday.
When I got to the library. I was early enough to write for 25 minutes (a single Pomodoro) … or I would have been had the free WiFi there not forced me to check and accept a few things before I could continue. I managed about 235 words, though, of scene 11, which means I almost doubled that particular scene. It’s a bit waffley at the moment in places, and a bit sketchy in others. But I’m getting the story down, and that’s the most important thing.
When I got home, the poet was still about an hour-and-a-half away, so I did some more faffing on Scrivener. I had to reinstall my Save the Cat template but, fortunately, that was on the backup hard drive. Then, because I’ve learnt how to import Word without losing the formatting, I imported Catch the Rainbow, so it’s the same format as The Fool.
All of my fiction will now be to this format. When I have a spare minute (yeah, right …), I might transfer Night Crawler over too. When Catch the Rainbow is ready to go out, I’d like to have Night Crawler ready to show them as well, if they ask, because you never know …
The main reason I stalled on Catch the Rainbow was because of the inquest held in Birmingham earlier this year. Much of what I’d speculated felt a bit daft when it was also suggested in court. But as I’m reading it out and getting some live feedback, I’m realising that, actually, it isn’t too bad at all.
Today’s jobs include reading work and note-taking for Richard Cadbury. The two oversized books I borrowed from the library in Birmingham need to be back this weekend. I have them for four weeks, but as I won’t be able to take them down next Thursday, we’re going to take them at the weekend and hope for nice weather so the poet can get some good outside photographs as well (for the book). I’d also like to get some more words down, so that I feel more as though I’ve started.
I still have some exercises to catch up on for 14 Days …. I should be able to manage at least a couple of writing sprints for that today, as I’m here all day.
I’m inclined to leave my critical data on the portable backup hard drive at the moment. My desktop computer is so unreliable now, it would be quicker to not copy everything over all the time. I’m coming *this close* to breaking the habit of a lifetime and using the cloud. I have a couple to choose from, but I don’t want to lose them either if ever their T&Cs change.
