Back to work

Russ was home all last week, so I didn't bother to do any Tweets, LJ or Blog entries except for the picture a day stuff. I did keep my general journal going, but only because that's the one some friends watch to find out about real life stuff. Yeah, like I have one of those things.

Having a week with Russ was very nice. We went to a couple wildlife refuges and drove through a local park and to the pond near here. Russ had work to do, though, so we didn't have enough time together. Still, better than not at all!

In the writing world, I am back to work on the last rewrite/edit/read aloud/edit phase of Paid in Gold and Blood. Amazing -- I really thought I was done with it before this. But having let it sit for awhile and picking it up again -- and reading it aloud -- has shown me how much work it still needed. Type, read, edit, type, edit: it's an interesting process. But I am down to the last few pages and I think I'm going to have it done tonight. I also have a short story that is very close to done. I started it yesterday and flew while I was working on it last night. However, I can't quite see the ending, which is annoying me.

Russ and I discussed something that I know is a part of my writing-world and a problem the last few years. I need changes to help keep my mind from getting into a rut. I've been doing far more rewriting the last two years than new stuff. That's not bad, of course. I have plenty of things I need to work on. But even the few new stories I've started seem to drag to me. The rides with Russ helped. I came up with an entire new science fiction universe and the start of a story idea to go in it.

However, I risked it just following into the same sort of problems as others I've worked on. I needed something different to keep it alive, even when Russ was gone.

So I invested in a program I'd been looking at for awhile called WriteItNow (http://www.ravensheadservices.com/index.php). I'm not certain how I came across this program or why it, out of all the ones I've seen, appealed to me so much. I am using it for the new idea, though, and so far it seems to be working well for me. I'm trying to clear some of the other things off my list so I can sit and play with it more, too.

I am, primarily, a Word ™ user. I will continue to be so. I have also loved SuperNoteCard for years, but I've had problems with it lately and this does much the same sort of thing, while allowing me to access notes, character creation and outline and basic writing all from the same program.

Russ thought this might be a good way for me to keep that 'something different' feeling going. I think he's right. And I can see where this is going to be an interesting program to work with in the future, too. It has some interesting add-ons -- http://www.ravensheadservices.com/add_ons.php -- and I wonder if I can create one of my own for my main science fiction universe and another for my main fantasy universe. It would be great to have access to data for those sets when I need it.

Speaking of being able to get to data when I need it. . . .

I began a long overdue project tonight -- pulling my history books off the shelves and getting them back in order. I don't know how they got so bad. Right now the plan is to put myth, religion and science on one wall and history on the other. There will be a bit of overlap in history/science since a lot of prehistory is archaeology and anthropology. It's likely the history will spill over into the science side -- it does now with some World War II and Early American History works. Right now, about a quarter of the books are on a table, sorted into piles. It's going to take me a few days to get this all done. I've decided mostly to just do parts of it at a time and not push. I'm enjoying it. So many great books there. I am already looking at several to read and re-read.

The cats are weirded out. Makes it all the better.

Now -- back to try and finish Paid in Gold and Blood!