This morning I woke up feeling like one of the survivors on “Lost.” The past two days were spent watching the munchkins while my son and his BW worked on the new house. My constant companions were a 3 year old, a 2.5 year old and a 9 month old.
Nobody was interested in a nap but me. The majority won. We played Wizard of Oz, went for a walk, watched SpongeBob SquarePants, read books and blew lots and lots of bubbles. Needless to say they had my full attention and there was no time to write.
We had a blast but never did I feel more like a baby boomer. There’s a reason why a woman’s fertility starts going downhill after thirty.
Because my life is so hectic – day job, writing, babysitting – I’m always looking for good software so I can work more efficiently. I started my novel in MS Word, a new file for each chapter. It wasn’t long before it became awkward and hard to handle so I looked around for software specifically for writers. There’s a lot out there and most of it is $$$$.
Luckily I came across yWriter when I entered a contest for one of Simon Haynes’ books. I didn’t win the book but I found out he writes great software and gives it away free. I downloaded a copy of yWriter and I’ve been using it ever since. Thank you Simon.
yWriter will organize your book using a “Project,” add scenes, chapters, characters and settings. It provides a word count, automatic back-ups and much more
And did I mention it’s free.
Someone told me about “WriteItNow” by Ravenshead Services and I downloaded the demo to give it a try. It’s user friendly with tabs at the top and a tree view on the left. The help is well documented and there are plenty of extras.
It comes with a short story that illustrates the various features. I chose to use a story idea of my own and start from scratch although I wasn’t able to save anything.
I started with the “Characters” and added a few descriptions. You can even generate new characters and names when you get stuck. There are tabs for “Locations,” “Events,” “Ideas,” “Chapters,” “Notes,” “Charts” and “Submissions.” “WriteItNow” has a thesaurus, spell checker, word count and exports your work in plain text, RTF or HTML.
At $49.95 for the download or $59.95 for the CD WriteItNow is a reasonably priced alternative if you want the extra features.
