Wednesday 18 September 2024: Tidying my Scrivener binders

Today’s image was a free image from DepositPhotos. I liked it, even if I don’t know what’s in the glass…

We both woke up with aches and pains everywhere yesterday. The poet was up with the lark anyway, because he had a long and busy day a long and busy way away. But when he called me at 8:30am, he said he was full of it. I said I was too, and we both complained of sore throats and stuffy noses. Either we’ve been lying in a draught, or we’ve caught something. 

We don’t remember getting cold and wet when we were in Mablethorpe, and I certainly don’t remember feeling cold at any time, let alone at night. The only place we’ve been that’s mildly busy is the supermarket, although the poet has been mixing with people at work. As we’ve booked and paid for another weekend away, we don’t want to be poorly for that. Let’s hope it’s a flash in the pan.

I tried to ‘walk to work’ again, but the dog didn’t want to. We turned right at the top of the drive, got to the first corner, and he hunkered down and dug his heels in. We turned around and went the other way, but he did the same at the next corner. So I took him home, removed his lead, and let him have his zoomies around both the front garden and the back garden. I know he can be fussy about walks and will insist on getting in a car first. But I didn’t have time to drive him somewhere. He had to be happy with his zoomies.

There might have been something in the garden, as he keeps going to the same corner and fussing. There’s also a female dog next door and another 3 dogs over the back. I don’t think it’s because any of them are female and in season because he’s had his fluffy bits removed. Maybe he’s just odd. Or maybe it’s true: we do bring the stupid out in every creature we know.

I was at my desk bang on time, which was a bonus. The first job I did was catch up on emails and socials, and then I did my 5-minute declutter. Next I created a new text file in Scrivener for STEVIE BECK AND THE CHRISTMAS TREE MYSTERY, aka A WINTER’S KISS. I also duplicated AT THE EDGE Part 1 to make a Part 2, and I duplicated the file in the 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS folder and moved it to the HORVALE SHORTS folder (Stevie Beck shorts). 

While I was in Scrivener, I made a new folder for MARCIE CRAIG shorts, as she’s getting a few short stories of her own as well. Then I moved KILLER QUEEN and A DAY AT THE RACES into there and went in search of BURN, so I could add that to the folder too and have them all together. BURN has already been published, but if I’m going to eventually publish FIVE MARCIE CRAIG SHORT MYSTERIES, then I may as well have them all in the same place.

Then, of course, I had to tidy up the rest of the file. I have folders for each of the short story categories:

• Horvale Shorts (Stevie Beck)
• Marcie Craig Shorts
• 12 Stories in 12 Months
• Other

As I start to collect stories in a new series, they get their own folder and are moved out of ‘Other’. Now I also have a ‘Stories in Progress’  folder, which is where I’m going to start all of the stories from now on. At the top is the title of the story, or the prompt, or the anthology theme. On the next line is the category in brackets for which each story belongs.

At the time of writing, I now have 2 files in ‘Stories in Progress’: AT THE EDGE PART 2 and THE CHRISTMAS TREE MYSTERY. The first one has the 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS details for October; the second one has the anthology details for this story. Then the story starts.

I finally worked out what Scrivener for Mac was doing with my text in files. It had decided, in its wisdom, that anything in bold at the top should be in Heading format. Well, that cocks all the formatting up everywhere else and I much prefer to use plain or ordinary text for everything and titivate it up in the Word or OpenOffice document I’m going to upload to the publishing programs.

I’m still toying with Vellum, so I have more control over the formatting. But at the moment, for as long as I’m sticking with Draft2Digital (and why not, when they provide the mobi files, the epub files, the pdfs, the Word documents that were uploaded?), then I’ll keep the formatting as plain as possible until I get to the design part of the job.

That means it has to be as plain as possible in Scrivener too. I do like to compose in a Comic Sans font, as it’s more friendly and I find it easier and more comfortable to compose in. But once I compile it to Word or to Office, then it automatically changes to Times New Roman or Calibri and I change that to suit the market’s requirements, if it’s going to another market. If I’m publishing it, it stays in Calibri. 

Once the story is written, or a version of it at least, then I’ll move it to one of the other folders. Killiecrankie is going to get its own folder soon (THE BATTLE OF KILLIECRANKIE, FIREWORKS AT KILLIECRANKIE, CHRISTMAS AT KILLIECRANKIE, etc), and Molly’s clan will too (NEW YEAR’S REVOLUTION, CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, THE KITE FESTIVAL,  etc). But at the moment there aren’t any other series short stories. 

Major’s March is only 2 stories in (THE SPIRIT OF THE WIND  and SHAKING THE TREE), but once that goes up to 3, then that too will get its own folder. 

If a short story is written for 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS, then those will just be duplicated and the duplicates moved to their own folder. I’ll keep copies in the 12 STORIES folder.

When the folders grow too big, I’ll move them into their own Scrivener binder. Scrivener’s great for keeping everything together, but if the file size gets too big, it starts to slow down. At the moment, I still have single binders for Marcie Craig, Nettie Campbell, Stevie Beck and the Rainbow Chronicles novels and novellas. 

So they’re okay to a certain size. Pictures and complete websites (for research when offline) take up room.

I was in a proper faffing mood though, because then I started to go through my blog posts in Scrivener for the last 2 months to see how many include processes or guidance or history or opinion. Then I went and found my NOTES FOR WRITERS binder (it was on the external hard drive), copied it over, and duplicated about a dozen blog posts for topping, tailing and general tidying. I moved those across to NOTES FOR WRITERS, and there, ladies and gents, is another writers’ guide in the making.

It means that once I’ve written and published my blog post and copied it to BlueSky and Medium, I can still strip out the useful stuff and make a new guide out of it all. And that means one session’s work is utilised over and over again, because I’ll probably serialise NOTES FOR WRITERS on Medium as well, once it’s been published as a standalone. It will also probably get a new title too…

I had to step away from the faffing in the end and start today’s blog post, which I’ll also regurgitate everywhere one day. Then I permitted Windows to update my Office products. They’ve been trying to ever since I started using the Mac, but I wanted to make sure I could still get into everything and do something with it even if Windows cocked it all up again. 

I’m not using Excel any more. I’m using the Libre spreadsheets (NOT Numbers). I’m still getting used to the Libre word processor (NOT Pages) (yet), though, so for now I’m still using Word but I have Libre as backup if it all goes belly up. One day I may learn how to use the Mac products too. But not yet. One can only learn so much at a time before it all blends in together and becomes a blur.

I shared yesterday’s blog post to BlueSky, then imported it to Medium and reformatted it. 

Finally, I started to revive my dates planner system. If I’m going to write stories for myself or for anthologies, I want to make them as topical as possible. 

First of all I printed off my resources for March 2025, which consist of 

• an annual calendar for 2025
• a monthly but perennial overview calendar for March
• a weekly but perennial overview calendar for March

I went into Libre and created my dates prompt, which is a list of topical years at a rate of 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and so on, plus my monthly think/write/submit prompts, i.e. in September I’m thinking March, writing February, and submitting January. I put those on one spreadsheet and printed that off. Then I put all of my printouts in my ring binder.

Next, I did an internet trawl for (a) the dates sites I always had on my Windows PC, (b) new sites for appreciation days throughout the year, and (c) a couple of events calendars. Only the events calendars disappointed as I couldn’t find any decent ones for next year yet. They were all for this year and hadn’t been updated as the months passed.

Then I jotted topical things down in my weekly perennial overview calendar, starting with annual feast days, annual public holidays, and annual appreciation days, all for March. I did start work on the On This Day dates too, but I made a mistake. My topical year prompts was for 2024 and not 2025. D’uh. Fortunately, I’d only got 2 weeks in and there weren’t that many that took my fancy. 

I printed off those blank weekly calendars again and copied the annual dates over. But it was already late by now and the poet was home and already halfway through cooking tea. So I put it all aside to start again today.