Most Productive Day. Ever.

Sometimes, the Muse sings. Sometimes, you have a really good work day and you get a lot done. Sometimes they both happen at once and you get a massive amount of genius. Yeah, I don't mean to brag, but today was a massive amount of genius.

As I edited my first draft today, I found that a few scenes were missing. So I added those. I typed up the pages I had marked from my hard copy pass, too. Overall, I edited 36 pages of manuscript and added nearly 4,200 words to the original work!
Thanks to Liquid Story Binder, I know that it took me all of six hours of actual work to do it.

I have never written that many words in one day before. Ever. Not in first drafts, not during NaNoWriMo. 4,200 words is a lot. To put it in perspective, if I wrote this many words every day, I could finish a novel in 12 days.

So, bear with me as I bask in my own glory. **sigh** ;)


**Just a side note, I'm not that into myself. It's supposed to be funny

First Three Sentence Lites

I started working on revamping my scenes' sentences today. Finishing three scenes took a lot less time than I thought. If I maintain this pace I'll be done in three weeks, but I'd like to finish sooner.

I've been using Liquid Story Binder to make "note cards". Each "card" can be used to track my scenes, sentences, sequencing, and the elements that each scene should have. LSB also has some nifty tools that make the process more fun.

These actors are Colleen Dengel, XiXi Yang, and Dyllan Christopher, who I think look like Rachel, Lisa, and Nathan. Just something to make note carding more interesting.

The pictures represent the point of veiw character. If you can read these (I know it's tiny guys :( I'm sorry.), I have the scene title, the old sentence (if it's an old scene), what I've changed (if it's a new scene), the protag, antag, conflict, twist, and setting, and then the new sentence.

The process is actually fun and seeing a well-put-together sentence gives me chills :) It's exciting to see this come together.

Helpful Software for Writers

Okay, I have scoured the internet and I think I have a pretty good list of helpful software for writers. A special thanks to Sue on the How to Think Sideways message boards. She posted a majority of these links on our writer's forum. (Click to read How Think Sideways has helped me with my writing.)

First, the free stuff:

AbiWord
Bubbl.us web-based mind-mapping software. Good for brainstorming.
Google Notebook - a simple, but effective processor that you can access online and export onto any computer.
Dark Room: much like the mac's White Room, this is a simple processor that eliminates distractions.
Evernote - take a picture of something on your iPhone or Blackberry and sync it with your computer and the web. Pretty cool software.
Journler - journal and organizer (includes audio and video capabilities) (for Mac)

Langmaker - helps with language building (only works on Windows XP or under.)
Lotus Symphony: a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application.
Page Four - a simple but intuitive word processor. It's like Word, but for writers. Nice little tools and other additions make this worth a look. In my opinion, this is the best out of the free stuff.(for the full version: $34.95, but the free version includes a lot.)
PlotCraft
Q10 - saves in a plain text format and comes with a timer. (Windows only)
Rough Draft
Scripped and Zhura - for script writing (This is a link to a blog that talks about it.)

Storybase Online
Write Sparks ($0 - $77)
Write This
yWriter 4
Writer's Café - has multiple tools including plotcards that you can move around. Great organizational tool. Works on Linux, too. ($45.00 for full version)
Writertopia - has Work in Progress meters you can use for blogs and other websites so others can follow your progress (see my widget).

Microsoft Office Suite has a program called OneNote. It isn't free, but you may find that you already have it on your computer. It's quite nice. You can get a 60 day free trial here, or if you're a student or teacher, you can get it at a discount here.
MacJournal may be on your computer right now, if you're a Mac user.


Now the less-than-free-but-good products:

Book Writer 5.01 ($89.95)
Dramatica Pro ($244.00)
Dramatica Writers DreamKit ($49.95)
IdeaWeaver ($49.95)
Jarte Plus ($19.00)
Liquid Story Binder XE - best creative writing software on the market (for Windows). See my post about it here. ($49.95)
New Novelist ($54.99)
Novel Writer ($61.00)
Power Structure ($179.00)
Power Writer ($129.95)

Story Wizard ($54.99)
Storybase Software ($99.00)
StoryView ($179.95)
StoryWeaver ($29.95)
SuperNoteCard ($29.00)
Text Block Author ($49.97)
Typing Chimp's Character Pro ($69.99)
Typing Chimp's Character Writer 2 ($39.99)
Typing Chimp's QuickStory ($49.99)
WriteItNow ($49.95)
Writers Blocks - great for note card plotting, among other things ($149.00)
WriteWay ($79.00)

And of course, Holly has tons of excellent classes, workshops and clinics! See my review of those here.

Liquid Story Binder Software Discount

I found out through the Think Sideways forum that Liquid Story Binder is going on sale! Liquid Story Binder Software at 50% Discount will make the difference for me. The discount is only available on Tuesday, though. Otherwise, it's full price at $45-$55.
Liquid Story Binder is software for writers. It's like Scrivener, but can be used on Windows. It has it all--planning tools, story boards, timelines, images, character creating, journals, goal-setting... the list goes on. I decided to download a 30 free trial to see if I liked it. I'd heard it wasn't intuitive, but had everything you could possibly want in writing software. The people I talked to said you just need to get started and you'll discover new tools as you find a need for them.
I did take advantage of the journal. I wrote down some things as I explored:

I’m doodling around, trying to understand LSB. It’s complicated, and not exactly intuitive. I don't like the color scheme but-- wait! I read somewhere that you can change it! Score!
Most of the things I don’t like are minor. I can deal with it. But yeah, it's definitely not intuitive. I hate having to click on everything, although I'll bet there are shortcut keys. I was told this would take some getting used to. I can't expect to understand everything the first day.
I still don’t know if I want to move Shadows to LSB, or just start with planning Phantom. Hmmm... Not sure.
It’s hard to plan out something that’s already planned, but I’ll need to edit. It beats writing it all out on note cards. That would be silly, come to think of it. I’ll probably just start with my second draft.
Yeah.

I just I just discovered the typewriter feature. It's a full screen mode that doesn’t let you erase. This is a great way to do free association! My problem is that my right-brain feels more free when I type, but my left-brain likes to edit and censor.

Okay, I changed the template. Most of the color scheme choices are awful! They’re bright and gaudy and would hurt my eyes if I started at them for too long. The only decent options were Pale Horse, Baltic Sea, and Faded Pastel. I wound up creating my own color scheme which I appropriately titled ‘Rose’. I’m very pleased. It makes me want to write.

So there you have it, my first hour on Liquid Story Binder. I also like that it times your sessions and keeps an automatic word count so you can see how long it takes you to write a thousand words, or meet your goal, or how much time you waste. :)

If you decide purchasing software is not for you, I'll post a list of free software options sometime. But I've tried a bunch and none of them (with the exception of Scrivener) has as many useful features in one place.