June 26, 2009

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.

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